


This Feeling is Not Love

by QuoteIntangible



Series: Signs of Love [2]
Category: Black Veil Brides, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Andy Biersack is a badass, Andy has low self-esteem, Angst, Disabilities, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Medical Conditions, Mentions of public sex, Minor Violence, Recreational Drug Use, because i can't help myself, mentions of cancer and sick kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-06-08 12:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6854113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuoteIntangible/pseuds/QuoteIntangible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andy Biersack has ADHD and dyslexia, but he worked his ass off to get into UCLA. Now that he’s here, he’s determined to work as hard as he needs to in order to become a social worker, like his grandmother, to make her proud. If that means spending every single one of his spare moments studying and not having any other friends beside Ashley, then so be it. He's used to it. </p><p>Then he has the unfortunate chance of meeting William and Gabe, aka the soulmate couple from Hell, who throw his carefully constructed plans into chaos. </p><p>In other words, I wrote this because Andy Biersack is a beautiful, beautiful man. </p><p>This is a companion piece to The Signs of Love. I don't believe it is necessary to read Signs of Love first before reading this, but it'll certainly help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have ADHD or dyslexia, so if anything is wrong, please let me know. Also, Andy has self-esteem issues, which is why he refers to himself as stupid. However, his opinions are not my own. Just keep that in mind. Anyways, enjoy.
> 
> And sorry for any mistakes. I usually re-read this things several times before posting, but I only did it about once and a half this time, because I am too exhausted to do it again.

The clock _tick tocked tick tocked tick tocked_ over the table three rows over, beating in time with the pounding in his skull. He glanced at it briefly as the small hand ticked off another hour spent sitting in the library, working on the homework just assigned and due in one short week.

The clock read have past five. _Only two hours,_ he bitterly thought. Two hours to read two chapters and answer three questions, though in fairness one of those questions did have four parts to it. He sincerely hoped the rest of his college homework wouldn’t take this long, but seriously doubted it. He had ADHD and dyslexia, but he was determined to become a social worker just like his grandmother who didn’t have to take him in after his brother was sent to jail, didn’t have to care for him, and love him, and help him however he needed despite her age. He was determined to make her proud.  If that meant spending all of his time in the library doing homework, then so be it.

The library was mostly empty this early in the school year, except one annoying couple sitting under the clock, giggling and pawing at each other, lips seemingly attached by Gorilla glue.

 _Soulmates._ Oh, how he hated soulmates. He wasn’t against the entire notion, per say, wasn’t part of the bitter soulmate-less club. He _had_ one, though it wasn’t something he liked to think about. No, it was entirely the notion of too much PDA and loud declarations of love that most soulmate pairs (and the occasional threesomes) felt necessary to engage in every single moment of their life together. It was annoying. And unnecessary. But mostly annoying, and Andy didn’t need to hold somebody’s hand, or make out in public spaces to tell someone he loved them.

His brother always said love was keeping someone’s secret, especially if that secret could land them in jail. Andy kept his brother’s and Ashley’s secrets. That was enough for him.

 He glanced across the table tucked into the corner of UCLA’s main library to where Ashley was sitting, sees him snap the same textbook closed. 

“Finished,” Andy asked, tightening his grip on his pen.

“Yeah,” Ashley said, stuffing his textbook and notebook into his backpack. Ashley started the same two chapters, and the same six questions as Andy half an hour ago, and was already finished. Andy knew the only reason Ashley even bothered to start the homework a week before it was due, rather than the night before, was to keep Andy company.

Though Ashley was his one and only friend, had been since he was three-years old, Andy kind of hated him right now.

 “It’s almost dinner,” Ashley said, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Are you coming, or staying here to work?”

Andy forced his eyes away from the paragraph he’d read three times now and still didn’t  understand to glare at Ashley’s earnest face. “Staying,” he grunted in response, and returned to his book. “I got to get this done now.”

“I could help?” Ashley said, and Andy resisted the urge to kick him under the table. It’s a question he’d heard from Ashley thousands of times during high school.

 _I don’t need your help,_ the childish part of his brain snapped. “No, it’s fine. I got this.”

“If you’re sure,” Ashley said, hesitating at the table.

“I’ll see you back at our dorm room,” Andy dismissed him.

“Andy,” Ashley said, and he could see his best-friend gearing up for another lecture. _College is about having fun, too,_ he could hear Ashley say. _You can’t spend the entire time studying._

Ashley doesn’t understand what it’s like to be him, to have ADHD _and_ dyslexia. Everything just comes so easy to Ashley, school, homework, making friends, everything.  He doesn’t understand how difficult it is for Andy just to read, let alone answer questions on what he’s just read, or God forbid write an easy. Ashley’s one of those gifted people who’s never had to study a day in his life and still managed to graduate in the top ten of their class.

It’s not fair, and he’ll never admit it outside of his own head, but he’s totally jealous.

 _“Ashley,”_ he said in the same tone he always used when he didn’t want to hear his best-friend’s bullshit.

“Yeah, okay. See you back in our dorm.”

It took him another hour to finish what Ashley did in less than one, not that Andy’s keeping score or anything. The assignment’s not even due until Friday, but he needs the rest of the week to work on other assignments due on Monday. If he lets himself fall behind even just a little bit, he’ll never catch back up. He learned that the hard way in high school. 

He checked his To-do list –an absolute necessary lifesaver for someone like him who had the attention span of Dory from Finding Nemo – to make sure he didn’t miss anything, and realized he never checked out the book he needed to read for his stupid English class. He contemplated just borrowing Ashley’s notes after Ashley would undoubtedly finish the entire thing in an afternoon, but quickly dismissed the thought. He was not going to take any shortcuts.

As he neared the right aisle of books he heard a low, distinctive moan and an ‘oh, Gabe,’ followed by a responding ‘shh.’ _Great,_ Andy thought, there were people having sex in the library, and of course, _of course,_ it just had to be in the exact aisle he needed. He contemplated coming back for the book in the morning, but knew if he didn’t get it right now, by morning he’d forget, and he’d only remember again the day before the assignment on it was due and by then it would be too late to read the book.

His life was so hard.

Whoever was having sex in the library was just going to have to deal. It’s nothing he hadn’t seen before, and if they were having sex in the library of all places, it was probably nothing they hadn't shown to the public before. He strode down the aisle as both of the two men were zipping up their jeans.  It was just his luck they were  _right_ in the front of the exact section he needed.  They looked vaguely familiar, and he realized it was because they were the annoying soulmate couple that was sitting under the clock earlier.

“I need that book you’re having sex on,” he said in a flat voice, not sorry at all for bothering them.

The one with the tan skin who was leaning against the stack of books raised his eyebrows, but sidestepped to the left, pulling his partner with him.

“Thanks,” Andy mumbled, though he didn’t mean it. He dropped his backpack, and dropped to his knees to find the right book. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on edge because the two weirdos were just standing there starring at him.

“It’s kind of early in the semester to be at the library so late,” the tan one said. “Why are you here?

Andy tensed his shoulders, and wondered if they heard his argument with Ashley earlier, if they were making fun of him now because of his learning disability. Not everyone had the luxury of free time for sex in public places. 

“And it’s kind of early to be having sex in the library,” Andy shot back. “And not that it’s any of your business, but I’m using the library for what it’s supposed to be used for, studying.”

“Ooh, feisty. I like you,” the tan one said.

“Gabe,” the skinny one chastised and punched Gabe in the shoulder. “Be nice. Name’s William,” he said, offering his hand, which Andy did not take. “We were just on our way to our Disability Advocacy club meeting. You should come.”

There was no doubt in Andy’s mind now that these two heard him arguing with Ashley, and that he was most likely being made fun of. Their club was probably lame and needed an actual person with a disability, such as Andy, to make their stupid club legitimate, or they just wanted to parade him around to the other members like, ‘hey, I found an actual person with a disability,’ or ‘I found an idiot dumber than your idiot.’

Well Andy’s not playing along with that joke ever again. “No,” he said, turning his attention back to the stack of books.

Gabe started to talk again, but Andy could not concentrate on reading the book titles to find the one he needed and on Gabe’s words at the same time. Plus, he didn't actually care about whatever Gabe was saying, so he tuned him out. The clock on the wall continued to tick far too loudly for a library. Someone was clearing his throat every few seconds and tapping their foot against a table somewhere to his left, and someone else’s alarm blared to life in the relative silence. It made it even harder to concentrate, and he had to read over the titles several times before he found the right one.

By the time he was able to turn his attention back to the two annoying people who were _still_ standing over him, it was just in time to hear Gabe say, “That settles it, you’re coming with us.”

“What? No,” he said, but before he could tell them to shove their invitation where the sun didn't shine, Gabe grabbed his wrist and started dragging him out of the library. The skinny one had already grabbed his backpack and taken off with it, leaving Andy with no choice, but to follow.

 _Oh yeah, they’re totally making fun of me,_ he thought, as Gabe literally dragged him into the club room. He recognized one of the dudes as a TA for his math class. He was one of the youngest people to ever TA for a math class in the history of UCLA, so there was no way that guy had a learning disability. His TA was talking to a beautiful girl with cropped blue hair, and there was no one else in the room, except for a short, blonde haired guy standing alone at the front of the room riffling through a messenger bag.

 _Is this it?_ he thought, and tried to back out of the room, but Gabe pushed him forward. “Patrick,” Gabe called to the short guy with the messenger bag. “Come here, I’ve got someone for you to meet.”

The short guy, Patrick, offered  a smile and his right hand. Andy stared at it like it was a rat trap about to snap off his fingers.

This was all some sick, cruel joke to make fun of the disabled kid. Andy was not about to be the butt of anyone’s joke ever again. He intended to tell them all to fuck off and storm out of the room, when he heard, “Bill! You’re wearing your prosthetic! How’s that going?”

From the corner of his eyes he saw a short dude wearing eyeliner and as much black clothing as Andy embrace Bill.

“Eh, it sucks,” William said, bending his prosthetic leg at the knee. “It itches, and it makes my leg ache, and I feel like I’m walking funny all the time. Doc said I’ll get used to it, but I don’t know, maybe the crutches and the copious amounts of pitying looks from other people weren’t so bad,” William said, rolling his eyes.

“I hear you,” the short, eyeliner wearing dude said. “I want to punch everyone in the face who stares at Patrick for too long, even if they’re not making that stupid sympathetic face. But if you really hate it, throw that shit out. You don’t need it.”

A loud group of people walking into the room caught his attention. There was a dude with hipster glasses leaning into the side of someone just a shade taller than him with light brown hair and a round face covered in scruff. A man just as tall as Andy, but significantly less coordinated, was entering with them, flapping his arms around and squawking, “What’s the point of wearing hearing aids if you’re not going to turn them on?”

“They are on,” the guy with the beard said, shifting the weight of the smaller dude who he was practically carrying. “He’s just ignoring you.”

“I’m exhausted,” the guy in the glasses said, “because _someone_ kept me up all night.”

 _He’s deaf,_ Andy realized, _and that wasn’t just arm flapping, that was sign language._

A blur of motion stole his attention away. _Stupid ADHD,_ he thought. It was a cane, the motion that caught his attention, being relentlessly prodded into the side of an apparently very patient bearded man in flipflops by a dude wearing a hideous plaid vest in various shades of beige, and huge sunglasses that covered most of his face. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was blind.

He managed to turn his attention back to Patrick, who was still smiling at him gently. “I’m –” Andy said, and then someone crashed into his back, and threw an arm around his shoulder.

“This is our newest member,” Gabe said, tightening the arm around him, and squishing Andy’s face to his chest. “This is, uh, what was your name again?”

“Andy,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Get off.” He pushed Gabe away, but to no avail. The guy simply wouldn't budge, and for once Andy couldn't use his height as leverage to free himself, so he didn't even try.

“Cool,” Gabe said, nonplussed with Andy’s discomfort. “Hey, everyone, meet Andy. He wants to join our awesome club.”

“Hi, Andy,” a few voices chorused.

“Hi,” he said to the general amalgamation of people in the room, finally wiggling his way free of Gabe’s hold.

So, he wasn't being made fun of after all. This really _was_ a Disability Advocacy club.

“Nice to meet you, Andy,” Patrick said, dropping his hand, but not the smile. “It’s nice to have you, even if it’s under duress,” he said, giving Gabe a pointed stare. “Not everyone’s here yet, but let’s get started anyway,” Patrick addressed the room.

Everyone started dragging chairs to make a circle, and it felt like elementary school all over again, or maybe some sort of 'insert addiction here' anonymous meeting, not that he'd ever been to one. He wondered if everyone was going to hold hands and talk about their feelings, too.

“Welcome back everybody,” Patrick said taking the seat the short dude with the eyeliner dragged over for him. Andy reluctantly accepted the chair dragged over to him by the tall dude who was signing earlier and sat between him and a girl with blue hair. “Since this is our first meeting this semester and we have a new member, why don’t we go around and say our names, a little about ourselves, and whether or not anything interesting happened over the summer. I’ll start. I’m Patrick. I’m a junior, and as most of you know I got surgery done on my shoulder over the summer, and it went well. I’ll never be able to use the arm, but the pain is finally gone. Pete?”

“Pete, junior, and eh,” Pete said with a shrug.

“Tell them about the internship,” Patrick said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh yeah. I interned at Maek, and they loved me so much they hired me part-time for the semester. I’m pretty much guaranteed a job there after I graduate.”

“Sweet,” Gabe said, high-fiving Pete. “I’m Gabe.”

“And I’m William.”

“And we eloped!” the two said in unison like this was some kind of game show.

“You did not,” the guy holding hands with the blind dude said.

“We did, too. We got the documentation in our dorm to prove it,” William said.

“Why don’t you come back to our dorm with Ryan after and we’ll show you,” Gabe said with a wink.

“If this is another attempt to get us to do a foursome with you, I will strangle the both of you and let Ryan beat you with his cane.”

Gabe opened his mouth to reply, but Patrick cut him off by clearing his throat. “Let’s save the talk about orgies later, boys, we don’t want to scare off the new member. Dan, why don’t you …”

“Dan, sophomore, and Professor Smoaks offered me the TA position for his math class, I went on part of Halsey’s epic road trip, and I interned with Professor Tiegen in his lab over the summer working on the quantum well effects of quantum dots for future application in solar cells.”

 “I’m Spencer, and I’m going to pretend to know what Dan just said,” Spencer said, and everyone, but Andy chuckled. “I helped Brendon make his documentary over the summer, and we got to meet some really cool bands,” he said, nudging the guy leaning on him with his shoulder.

“Brendon,” the boy with the glasses said, his head still resting against Spencer’s shoulder. His jaw cracked around a yawn, and he closed his eyes again.

“Tell them the good news,” Spencer said when it becomes apparent Brendon intended to remain quiet.

“What good news?” Brendon said, yawning again.

Spencer rolled his eyes at what Andy assumes was his boyfriend or soulmate maybe. Spencer propped Brendon up with hands on both of his shoulders as if placing him on display. “Brendon entered the documentary he made this summer into a local competition and won. They’re going to show his documentary at the film festival downtown.”

“That’s awesome, B,” Patrick said. “Why haven’t I heard about this yet?”

“We just found out last night,” Spencer said, as Brendon tilted over without Spencer’s steadying hands, and rested his head again on Spencer’s shoulder.

“Ah, so that explains why Brendon is so tired,” William said with a wink. _Definitely soulmates,_ Andy thought.

“Spencer helped make the documentary,” Brendon mumbled, oblivious to the bright red blush spreading across Spencer’s cheeks. If he heard the comment by William, he clearly didn’t care.

“I just held up the mic,” Spencer insisted, shifting his arm so he could wrap it around Brendon’s shoulder and pull him closer.  

“You two are adorable,” the only girl said. “Halsey, sophomore, and I went on a road trip of self-discovery to the east coast and back with some friends," she said, briefly locking eyes with Dan, who nodded encouragingly, before adding, "Guys, I'm non-binary, and that's okay. I accept myself for who I am.”

"Sweet," Brendon sleepily mumbled, and bumped fists with her.

"We love you just the way you are," William said. 

"I know," she said. 

Andy shifted uncomfortably in his seat when everyone turned to stare at him. “Andy,” was all he said. He was not about to tell these people he spent all summer studying in preparation for his first year at college, on top of avoiding Danny, the local asshole who kept trying to get Andy to join his gang. It would have been easy money, and he could have probably made enough in one summer to pay for all 4 years of  college just by running drugs for Danny, but Andy wasn’t about to disrespect his grandmother like that. He sunk down lower in his seat, trying to disappear.

“Dallon,” the next guy thankfully said, drawing the attention off of Andy. “Sophomore, and my mother made me take a cooking class with her, but it was pretty awesome. I also organized a beach cleanup, which thank you Patrick and William for coming.”

“Jon, sophomore, and I did absolutely nothing over the summer, and it was awesome,” Jon said, before poking the blind dude.

“Ryan, and I entered that short story I wrote about Brendon and I getting lost on the Boulevard last semester when his hearing aids were on the fritz into a contest and won,” he said, somehow pointing his cane accusingly in Brendon’s direction who was obliviously asleep. “Also, my advisor is helping me fill out a grant to get a seeing eye dog, so I may be getting a dog.”

“Thanks, that’s great everyone,” Patrick said. It was hard to pay attention to what Patrick said after that. The blind dude kept tapping his cane on the ground and twirling it in his hands drawing Andy’s attention every time he did. The guy in the hipster glasses passed out against Spencer’s shoulder, and kept twitching in his sleep.

Gabe and William kept whispering to each other and giggling like pre-pubescent teenager girls. By the time Patrick called an end to the meeting, Andy caught maybe half of what Patrick actually said. Didn’t really matter, though, because he did not intend on ever coming back.

“That’s it guys, and girl. If anyone sees Tyler, Josh, or Gee, let them know when our next meeting is. Hope to see you all next week,” Patrick said, and Andy sighed in relief. He snatched his backpack away from William, and was about to bolt, when he heard Spencer say, “Wait, guys a moment?”

Spencer poked Brendon, who shifted slightly, but does not stir. “You guys remember that documentary Brendon made on Alpha Ki Omega for his class?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Patrick said, looking suspicious.

“Well, some of the frat guys he interviewed may have incriminated themselves on their illegal hazing, and other activities, and Brendon’s professor may have shown the documentary to the Dean of the school, and Brendon’s documentary may be the reason why that frat is suspended indefinitely.”

“Oh shit,” William said. “ _That’s_ why that frat got shut down?”

“Yeah,” Spencer said, checking again to make sure Brendon was still asleep before saying, “some of the frat have threatened Brendon over the suspension, so I would really appreciate if you guys could keep an eye on him when I can’t. Like don’t let him walk alone anywhere, ever at night. But don’t tell him I asked you to.”

This was definitely none of Andy’s business. Growing up in a tough neighborhood where violence pretty much happened right outside his window every day and night, Andy learned the hard way not to get involved in other people’s shit. It was a good way to get yourself beat up, or in trouble with authority for something you didn’t actually do, even if you were just trying to help, _especially_ if you were just trying to help.

He fleed the room and hoped to never see any of these people again. They could only cause trouble.

“Where were you?” Ashley asked when he shuffled back into their room, and fell face first onto his bed. “I came back to the library to get you for dinner, but you were already gone.”

“No where important,” Andy said, and immediately fell asleep.

*

It was impossible to avoid everyone in the Disability Advocacy Club when not only was one of them his TA, but the rest were literally everywhere and wouldn't leave him alone. It was like they were genies, or maybe he was cursed and everyone he didn't want finding him somehow always knew where he was. He was half convinced Gabe and William were actually stalking him. Usually, the scowl on his face and the giant neon sign above his head that clearly spelled out ‘Fuck Off’ kept people away. But these people were impervious to all things negative in life. Either they just chose not to see it, because they lived sheltered lives and never had to fight to survive on the streets like him, or they viewed negativity as a personal challenge to overcome.

Andy didn’t know which scenario he hated more.

Either way, Andy thought they were all morons. Stupid, idiotic, endlessly happy morons.

“Andy!” he heard someone call out from the other side of the dining room, just two days after his first –and only, thank you very much – club meeting. He didn't turn towards the voice, because frankly Andy was a very popular name, and the chances this person was talking to him were slim to none. He made that mistake once, and only once. Plus, the only person on campus that knew his name and he actually wanted to talk to were Ashley and his professors.

“Andy!” the voice called even louder, and he saw frantic waving from the corner of his eye. _Great, now people are starting to stare at me_ , he realized, as he hunched his shoulders, literally incapable of not turning in the direction of the waving and pretending he never heard his name. His stupid ADHD was always getting him in trouble.

His shoulders slumped when he saw uh … what was his name again? Dallon, maybe, ushering for Andy to join him and a several other familiar faces, and a few he didn'tknow. Ugh, large groups of people. Andy had a particular distaste for large groups of people.

He had every intention of ignoring him. He was _not_ in college to make friends. He was there to drag himself out of poverty, and make his grandmother proud, and maybe get her that house she deserved. There was no room for friends, despite Gabe and William’s attempts to stalk him.

But the look on Dallon’s face was so earnest, like a child, and Andy got the distinct feeling that rejecting him might be the equivalent of kicking a puppy. He reluctantly joined their table, because his grandmother did raise him to be polite after all, and he justified his decision by noting Dan was there. He had meant to ask Dan a question on his homework in his upcoming office hours.

He resisted the urge to slam his tray down as he took the seat Dallon cleared for him. The smile Dallon flashed him looked like it hurts, and the rest of the group seemed happy to have him there. It was …weird, and unsettling. No one was every happy to see him, but Ashley and his grandmother.

“Andy, good to see you again,” Dallon said, cheerful as a child hopped up on sugar. “Guys, this is Andy. Andy, this Josh, Tyler, and of course you know Dan and Halsey,” Dallon said, and tried to place a friendly pat on Andy’s shoulder, which Andy jerked away from. Not even that made Dallon’s smile falter.

“Sweet, nice to meet you, “ Josh said, and offered his knuckles for a first bump. Andy did not accept, so Tyler bumped Josh’s fist instead, giving Andy a shy smile, before turning to stare at his plate. At least Andy wasn’t the only one who felt awkward as fuck amongst all these people.

Thankfully, the group of people he wasn’t sure he liked mostly ignored him, so he focused on finishing his meal as quickly as possible. It was impossible to completely tune out their conversation, though.

“I hear you guys have another gig coming up,” Halsey said.

“How do you even know that? We just found out like an hour ago. Are you telepathic or something?” Josh asked.

“I have my ways,” Halsey said with a  wink.”

“Wait,” Dallon interrupted, “you’re not playing at another frat, are you? That last one you played at was God awful. You were great, but the frat not so much. I’ve literally never been surrounded by so much stupid before, and I’m too delicate to break up another fight.”

“No, no,” Josh reassured. “And thanks for that by the way, but this one’s at Seamen’s, you know the bar downtown. It allows anyone 18 and over, that means no excuses for not coming,” Josh threatened, but it was negated by his huge smile.

“When you’re famous rockstars will  you give us free backstage passes and let us meet all your famous rockstar friends?” Halsey said.

“Please, like you won’t be so wealthy by then you couldn’t just buy whoever’s friendship you wanted, or your own label of rockstars that would have to worship you,” Josh said with a fond shake of his head.

“But you could become famous by next year,” Halsey argued.

“Exactly,” Josh said, offering her his own wink. Andy resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he stuffed his burger into his mouth, barely taking the time to chew so he could end this foray into Hell as soon as possible.

“Well, Spencer, Pete, and I are working on developing an app. It’s pretty awesome if I do say so myself, we’re just waiting for Pete to finish the coding.”

“I’m surprised it’s taken him this long,” Dan said, stealing most of Halsey’s fries. “Didn’t he like hack the DoD when he was like 15 or something like that?”

“Something like that,” Halsey said. “I think that’s why he hasn’t finished for us yet, though. He’s too busy with his other projects. I think he’s secretly part of Anonymous.”

“That would not surprise me,” Dallon said.

The resulting lull in the conservation made Andy sweat. If they weren't distracted by each other, then they were likely to remember he was there. He hoped he’d been quite enough that they’d forgotten about him completely. It was enough for him that he was even sitting with them, he did not need to engage in idle conversation, that was way beyond his purview.

Unfortunately, Andy was never that lucky.

“So, Andy,” Halsey said with a sincere smile that had to be fake. Andy cringed as his name rolled sweetly off her tongue. “What are you majoring in?”

“Social work,” he begrudgingly replied, stuffing the rest of his burger into his mouth. He was very aware social work wasn’t as glamorous as business, or computer science, or music, but he refused to be ashamed. That's what his grandmother did, and that was what he wanted to do. 

“That’s a very noble career,” Dallon said.

Andy felt like punching him in the nuts. He thought someone else might have kicked Dallon for him if the way he suddenly jerked and winced was any indication. “I mean, why social work?” Dallon asked, as whoever kicked him before, presumably did so again. “I mean, that’s kind of personal, sorry,” Dallon said, and blushed. Dallon glanced across the table, and sighed in relief when he did not get kicked again. “You kick really hard for a girl.”

Apparently this Dallon character didn’t learn. The look on Halsey’s face was positively mutinous, like she wanted to spring from her seat and slap Dallon for that comment. Dallon looked appropriately scared, Andy thought. Halsey may be tiny, but she seemed fierce.

“Is Dallon putting his foot in his mouth again?” a too loud voice asked from across the table, startling Andy. He winced at the volume of Brendon’s voice.

“When isn’t he?” Dan said, stealing the rest of Halsey’s fries.

“How could you even tell?” Dallon stuttered, and sunk lower in his seat.

“You do know he lip reads, right?” Pete said, ruffling Brendon’s hair. “But your blush was a dead giveaway. You’re kind of notorious at this point for being the king of awkward. The whole campus had a vote, and you won.”

“Andy!” Brendon suddenly exclaimed, abruptly ending Dallon’s embarrassment. He went to slap Andy on the shoulder, but stopped himself – to Andy’s immense relief – before making contact. “It’s good to see you again.”

 _Is no one else going to comment on how loud Brendon is being?_ he grumbled in his head, but nodded in response to Brendon with a tight smile.  The fluorescent lights glinted off of something beige and plastic in Brendon’s ears. _Oh yeah,_ he thought, and felt like a dick. This was why he usually kept his mouth shut. 

Brendon and Pete did not come alone. They came with Spencer (of course), and some guy named Joe who reeked of incense, or at least what he thought might have been incense.

The noise intensified like an old engine firing up, revving until it reached peak capacity, and assaulting his eardrums. Multiple conversations started, and it was too hard to keep track of even one. It made his skin itch, made his fingers twitch. He contemplated sneaking away, but he was almost done inhaling his lunch and a few more minutes hopefully wouldn't kill him. He prayed no one asked him a question though, because right now he just couldn't handle the embarrassment.

The shrill shriek of someone’s cellphone assaulted his ears, made his skin crawl with tension. His eyes automatically shot in the direction of the noise, and of course, of course it belonged to Brendon. Only someone deaf could stand a ringtone like that.

Brendon shared a look with Spencer before answering the phone, but before Andy could figure out why, his attention was stolen by Joe and Pete who appeared to be reenacting their last ‘totally awesome band practice’ – in their words – which Andy thought was a euphemism for getting high. In actuality, the two of them looked like a couple of animals performing badly in a circus ring, or like they were having a seizure. It was grating, and he tried to ignore it, but Pete kept making these grand gestures with his arms that had Andy’s eyes constantly jerking involuntarily in his direction, unfortunately catching every movement.

Halsey slapped Dan’s hand away when he tried to steal the rest of her honeydew. Then across the table, Pete threw both arms out wide and opened his chest and head up to the heavens.

It was too much. Too much noise, too much movement, too much color, and motion. It was all blurring in his mind, making a headache settle between his eyes and grow to smother his entire head in torment.

“No way!” Josh yelled.

“ I swear, Dan, I love you, but I will kill you,” Halsey said.

“That’s so interesting,” Brendon loudly said into his phone, each word piercing his skull like knitting needles. Andy clenched his hands into fists. “But just so you know I’m deaf, and have absolutely no idea what you’ve said, so I’m going to hand you over to my boyfriend," Brendon said, placing his hand over the speaker, and saying "Help," to Spencer in a voice that seemed to be screaming. At least it sounded that way to Andy. 

That was it! He couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed his tray, and his nearly finished lunch, and without so much as an explanation or a goodbye stomped away.

Ashley just _happened_  to see him storm away. “Who were those people?” Ashley asked, after following him out in the fresh air. The din and clatter of the dining hall receded behind him, and he finally breathed easier, felt the headache start to slide away.  “Are you actually making friends?” Ashley giddily asked.

“They’re nobody important,” he shrugged, and strode back to his dorm without seeing if Ashley followed.

*

Gabe and William were definitely stalking him, Andy thought. Every time he turned a corner, they were there. Every time he got out of class, one of them was just down the hall. Every time he walked into a dining hall, the two of them walked in moments after, after he’d already swiped his card and couldn't just leave for another dining hall. He'd been suckered into more conversations in just two weeks than he had during his entire 4 years in high school. 

He doubled his efforts to avoid them, and managed to skip the next two Disability Advocacy Club meetings. There was no way in Hell he was joining that club. For one tiny moment, he even contemplated dropping the class Dan was his TA for, but ultimately didn't because that would be stupid, and admitting defeat. Biersacks never admited defeat. They fought dirty till the end, even if they  knew they were wrong. He hoped that was that, hoped that these people got the message that  he ddidn't want to join their stupid group, and didn't want to be their friend.

He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

When he walked into his preferred dining hall for dinner one night, exactly two weeks after he had the misfortune of meeting Gabe and William, literally everyone from the only club meeting he attend was there, plus Josh, Joe, and a few other unfamiliar faces. They’d pushed three or four tables together in the center of the room, and even from the other end of the room he could  hear the tremendous din they were making.

It’s Tuesday, he realized, and just about the time the only club meeting he attended ended. He had never been told he was bright before, but even for him this was a terrible mistake. He backpeddled his way out of the dining room like dinosaurs were hot on his heels. It was inconvenient, but he’d just have to make the trek to one of the other dining halls on campus where no one could bother him. On the plus side, at least he knew where the entire club was so it’d be easy to avoid them.

Except when he walked into the next dining hall, swiped his card, grabbed his dinner, and went to sit down in the back, he spotted Tyler sitting all alone tucked into a booth in the far back, staring blankly into his untouched plate. There was nothing about the scene that tucked on his heart strings. Absolutely nothing whatsoever.

He intended to the do the right thing: sit on the other side of the room, pretend he never saw Tyler, and say nothing to anyone, exactly how he would want to be treated. Except Tyler’s eyes shot up suddenly, briefly fall on Andy’s face, before returning to stare at his plate.

He couldn't ignore it now. The polite thing was still to just walk away, but … Andy remembered being that kid in high school, the one with few friends, sitting all alone at lunch when Ashley wasn’t there, or didn’t have the same lunch period as him, getting taunted by the other kids for being stupid, or weird, or for no reason at all other than the other kids at his school were kind of assholes.

He set his shoulders, raised his head, and strode over to Tyler’s table. “You know, everybody else is at Bruin,” he said, as he set his tray down and slid into the other side of the booth.

“I know,” Tyler said with a shrug of his shoulders. "I told Josh I was sick." 

Andy didn't ask. It was both none of his business, and – he kept telling himself – he did not care, so he dug into his meal in silence, and pulled out his textbook to read. Tyler watched him for a moment, before starting his own meal.

He got half way through the chapter, and completely forgot Tyler was there, when the other man stuttered, “I, I… uh.”

Andy marked his spot with his pen, and flipped the book closed. “Yeah?”

“It’s just, I see you around campus a lot, and I noticed you spend a lot of time by yourself. Do you like spending time by yourself?” Tyler asked, a warm flush spreading from his cheeks down his neck.

“Mostly,” Andy said with a shrug. He liked spending time alone, honestly he did. Ashley called him an introvert like it was a bad thing, but Andy called it being mature. Being social was taxing, it sucked the life force right out of him, and sometimes he needed weeks – or months – to refuel his social reserves enough to even want to go out again. He saw nothing wrong with that, with being alone.

“Do your friends ever bug you about it?” Tyler asked, resorting to pushing his food around his plate fixedly.

Andy didn't really have friends, but, “Yeah. My friend Ashley is constantly ragging me to make friends and go out more. But I keep telling him there’s nothing wrong with being introverted.”

Tyler nodded his head, and fell silent again.

Andy knew this was none of his business, knew better than to get involved. The two most popular girls in middle school once used him as a go-between in 8th grade when they were fighting, and Andy ended up being the only one who got detention for that when it all blew up in their faces, so he knew better than to get involved. And it was better not to get emotionally attached to these people. Still, “You know, you don’t _have_ to hang out with them all the time, right? They’re kind of a loud and obnoxious group.”

“It’s not that,” Tyler argued. “Well, that is part of it,” Tyler agreed when he caught Andy’s incredulous look. “It’s just, my soulmate, Josh, he’s an incredibly extroverted person, you know? He thrives off of being around large groups of people, and he can make friends with any one. Everyone loves him, and I’m… I’m weird. I know I’m weird, okay, and sometimes I do like hanging out with all our friends,  but sometimes I just really like being alone,” Tyler said. He shoved his tray away and folded his arms over the table, resting his chin on his hands. “But I feel like when I say no to hanging out, that I’m holding him back, that he decides to stay in just because of me, and I end up feeling guilty and saying yes when I don’t want to go anywhere, but then he feels guilty for asking,” Tyler finished and buried his face in his arms. “I’m sorry, I don’t, I mean. You don’t …” he stuttered.

Soulmate issues were  _definitely_ not his area of expertise. In fact, Andy was expertly failing that particular subject. But he wasn't entirely clueless, and Tyler and Josh’s problem seems entirely idiotic to him. Andy had never been the type of person who kept silent when people were being stupid.  “You  know, just because you and Josh are soulmates doesn’t mean the two of you have to spend every single second of every day together. That’s stupid, you’ll grow sick of each other. You don’t have to be just like him to be happy, and you’re allowed to have separate hobbies. Neither of you should feel guilty because of it. Just talk to each other,” he said, and that was real rich coming from him considering his own communication issues with the most important people in his life. Tyler certainly didn’t need to know that, though. 

“You make it sound so simple,” Tyler said.

“Because it is. Tell  him you want to stay home, and  you like staying home by yourself, and that it’s completely fine it he wants to go and hang out with other. Problem solved.”

“I guess,” Tyler said, unfolding from his hunch over the table. “Thanks. I didn’t mean to share all that with you. I don’t know what just happened there. Sorry.”

Andy resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It was not the first time he'd heard that before. Just because he was reserved, and appeared confident people tended to think he had all the answers, when in reality he knew nothing more than the average person. He was confused about what led him to actually answer this time, but it felt good to help out, even if he knew it would come back to bite him in the ass. Somehow, it would all blow up in their faces, and he’d get blamed for it, like always.

He’ll just have to try even harder to avoid these people …. Forever, or at the very least, the rest of his college career.


	2. Chapter 2

Andy once spent six weeks living on the streets the summer after 7th grade while on the run from police. Andy, personally, was not on the run, but his brother had been involved in a drive-by shooting, and therefore was a wanted man. When his brother fled their tiny one room apartment with all of his belongings stuffed in a backpack with one strap barely clinging to life, Andy had no choice, but to follow. He didn’t know who his father was, doubted even his mother knew. Even if she did, she passed away a long time ago and took it to her grave without telling him. His older brother had been his legal guardian since he plucked him from foster care at 8-years-old.

Normally, a drive-by shooting drew little attention, and the police couldn’t muster up two shits about another incident like that happening in his neighborhood. But this particular drive-by resulted in the death of an innocent 15-year-old girl. The local community roared, the media caught on, and with so much attention, pressure from the local government, and a city calling for blood for a neighborhood they generally showed no concern over, the police were extra determined to catch everyone involved.

At the time they took to the streets, Andy knew none of this. All his brother told him was they had to go, and so Andy followed.  Though, the entire six weeks his borther claimed over and over again, “I was just the driver.” Andy did not know what that meant until his brother’s arrest.

On the streets, they ate out of dumpsters, because it was too risky to go to the local soup kitchen. Once, sometimes twice, a week they’d break into his brother’s old high school, the one he never graduated from,  to shower in the gym with soap stolen from a corner store. They slept on the ground under  bridges, on park benches, behind bushes with nothing but the clothes on their backs and some stolen jackets.

His brother promised over, and over, he’d get them out of there, to somewhere nice where there were no gangs, no violence, just the two of them. Someplace they wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground anymore, or forage through dumpsters. He’d take care of Andy, he promised.

On the 6th week, his brother left him in the park, went wherever it was he wandered off to during the day, and never came back.

Instead, two police, one man, one woman, showed up instead. When they told him why they arrested his brother, what his brother had done, Andy cried for the last time.

He cried.

                And cried.

                                And cried.

Until a grandmother he never knew he had (apparently the mother of a father he never knew)  picked him up from the station the next day.

To this day, to this very moment, Andy had yet to forgive his brother for his involvement in that girl’s death, and every single other person gunned down in that drive-by. His brother may have only driven the car, but he was still guilty of their deaths.

During his time on the streets, though, Andy learned a lot, from his brother, from the other people both homeless and not, from society. The first lesson he learned was that people treated you with disgust when you were homeless, even if you were just a kid, and you could not expect them to help you.

The second was survival required adaptability, and sometimes adaptability meant doing some truly disgusting things to survive, and leaving some really important people behind. The third was that you could not trust anyone, even if that person was family. The only person that could ensure your survival was you.

And lastly, living on the street taught Andy how to disappear, how to blend in, go unnoticed, avoid people. How to be invisible. It worked to his advantage quite a few times in the past, especially in high school, and his skills never failed him.

Until now, that is.

“How do you guys know where I live?” Andy asked immediately upon opening the door to his dorm, and spotting William and Gabe, both leaning against opposite sides of his door frame.

“You’re an easy guy to find,” Gabe said, pushing his way into Andy’s dorm, and collapsing onto Ashley’s bed.  He picked up one of Ashley’s chemistry textbooks and rifled through it.

“No I’m not,” Andy insisted. The only people that knew where he lived were Ashley and the school’s administration. “Did that Pete guy hack into the system or something and tell you?” he asked, standing  with his arms crossed near the door, so if he had to he could make a run for it.

“Nope. We’re just that good,” Gabe said, tossing the textbook back onto Ashley’s bed. “Anyways, enough chit chat. It’s time to go.”

“Go where?” he asked with a scowl, and then it hit him like bird slamming into a window. It was Tuesday, the day of that infernal club meeting. “Oh, oh no.”

“I think that was a yes. What do you think, Bill?”

“Sounded like a yes to me,” William said. They shared a look before springing to their feet. Andy dove for the handle, but before he could step one foot out the door, Gabe and William each dragged one of his arms over their shoulders and literally lifted him off his feet, which hovered a good inch off the ground. How they managed to do so when Gabe was the exact same height as him, and William was actually shorter and had a prosthetic leg was beyond him. He wouldn’t put it past them to wear platform shoes.

He struggled in their tight hold for a moment, but ultimately gave up when it became apparent they were magical beings with super strength. “Are you going to carry me like this the entire way to the meeting place?”

“Yup.”

“At least close my door.”

Both Gabe and William looked back at his door at the same exact moment, before walking backwards, with sound effects, still carrying Andy to close his door. They only put him down once they reached the designated meeting place. Surprisingly, they drew only a few stares on their way there. Maybe the campus was already used to this crazy duo’s insane antics.

“Andy,” Patrick greeted with the same enthusiasm and smile that perpetually permeated throughout the entire group. “It’s nice to see you again. Though, Gabe, William,” Patrick said, giving them a reproachful look, “What have said about kidnapping people?”

“We didn’t kidnap him,” William insisted.

“He wanted to come,” Gabe said.

“Then why aren’t his feet touching the ground?” Patrick asked.

“He just didn’t know yet this was where he wanted to go,” Gabe said.

“Uh-huh,” Patrick skeptically replied with a shrug of his good shoulder.

“Does this happen a lot?” Andy asked Patrick.

“Surprisingly, no. You would be the first. Oh, look at that. There’s B. I got to talk him real quick before the meeting. If you two are going to insist Andy stays, at least let him get comfortable,” Patrick said, walking away and taking with him Andy’s only hope of escape. All these people  were nuts, certifiably insane, he thought.  

How Gabe and William managed to both simultaneously shrug while still holding him up defied the laws of physics.

They forced him to sit between the two of them, with arms, and Williams prosthetic leg, draped all over him. But, he inanely though, at  least they let him have his arms back.

“All right, settle down children,” Pete said, the enormous din of the room quieting almost immediately.

“Thanks, Pete,” Patrick said, giving Pete a quick peck on the cheek, making something long buried and smothered in dust twist in Andy’s gut. “This week B’s got a pretty cool opportunity for us, so I’m going to turn it over to him.”

“Hey guys, as most of you know my Aunt’s a social worker here in Los Angeles, and it’s thanks to her  I’ve been mentoring some of the deaf kids at the hospital. It’s a really cool program if any of you are interested in joining. But anyways, the reason I bring it up is because the program is holding a carnival for the kids at the children’s hospital this Saturday.

“I know a lot of us here know what it’s like to spend months, sometimes years, in the hospital, and not be allowed to leave, let alone have fun, so this carnival is a really great way to bring some joy into these kids’ lives.  Patrick, Halsey, and I have been working on this for a couple weeks now, and we’re going to run a game booth, something fun for the kids to play and win prizes. We’ll only actually need like 3 or 4 people to run the booth, but my Aunt’ll need all the help she can get running the event, and some of the other booths for the kids.

“I know for many of us the hospital is a painful reminder of a pretty rough time in our life, so if you can’t volunteer, there’s no pressure,” Brendon says. “We’ll try and carpool everyone there. My aunt is picking up Spence and I, but unfortunately can’t fit any one else. Pete has already volunteered to drive, too, and can fit a couple more people in his car.  If you can drive I’ll add your name to the top of this list with the number of people you can fit in your car, and then I’ll pass around the list, and everyone else can add their name under the car they want to go in. Any questions?”

Next to him, William seemed to shrink in on himself. Recoiling his long limbs away from Andy, he raised his hand meekly, and asked, “Do we have to go in the hospital?”

Brendon’s eyes automatically shot to Patrick, before he said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t –”

“No,” Patrick interrupted, placing  a hand on Brendon’s shoulder. “Some of it will be in the hospital, but most of the booths are outside, including ours. We can make sure that you work an outside booth if you want.”

William and Gabe shared a look, before Gabe said loud enough for Brendon to hear, “We’re in! And I can drive.  We can fit three more people in my baby.”

“Sweet. Thanks guys,” Brendon said.

“Will there be anything for me to do?” Ryan asked.

“I’m sure my Aunt could find something for you to do,” Brendon asked. “She’ll probably ask you to hang out with some of the kids who are having trouble adapting to their disabilities or their illness, and could use someone like us, who still have our moments, obviously, but have learned to adapt and still live a pretty awesome life.”

Ryan squeezed Jon’s hand who squeezed back (Why, Andy thought, did soulmates always have to check in with each other before making plans?).  “We’re in, and Jon can drive,” Ryan said.

“Due to some complaints from you guys, though, about the size of my car, I think we can only bring two other people,” Jon said.

“Awesome, thanks guys. And since I think those are the only people in this group who have cars, I’ll pass this list around, and you can just add your name to the car you want to go in,” he said, passing the list to Halsey.

Gabe’s arm around him loosened enough that if Andy wanted to wiggle his way free, he could have and made a break for it, but this carnival was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Not only was it a great opportunity to gain some experience working with children, it would look good on his resume when applying for jobs, and he might get to talk to an actual social worker. However, when the list finally reached him, every one’s car was full, but Gabe’s. It was only a 10 minute drive to the hospital with decent traffic, but that was an extra 10 minutes with the soulmates from Hell. Was it really worth it?

Andy looked up when he noticed Brendon was standing directly in front of him, smile set on his face. Andy still did not understand how these people were so hdamn appy all the time. They probably never had to live on the streets, wondering where their next meal would come from, hoping no one jumped them in the middle of the night for their meager belongings. “Hi,” Brendon said, sliding into the seat next to him as Gabe vacated it, dragging William with him. “Halsey told me you were majoring in social work. If you’re interested, I could introduce you to my Aunt. She can answer any questions you might have, or help you find internship opportunities.”

And yeah, Andy really couldn’t say no to that, even if it meant spending quality time with the couple determined to assimilate him.

*

At 7am Saturday morning, far too early for _any_ college student to be up, except those too hungover from the night before to sleep, Andy slung his bag over his shoulder and tried to sneak out of his dorm.

“Where are you going?” Ashley asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Library,” he lied.

“At,” Ashley grabbed his cellphone from under his pillow, and said, “7 in the morning on a Saturday?”

“I have a big project due on Monday.”  He felt Ashley’s hurt stab through him – he always did know when Andy was lying to him – but he said nothing more as Andy snuck out the door, shutting it quietly behind him.

William and Gabe picked him up in front of his door. Surprisingly, the two were well-behaved and didn’t try to molest him or invade his space once. They even let Andy ride silently in the back.

“Andy!” Brendon greeted him as soon as they arrived. He was standing next to a middle-aged woman a few inches shorter than him with shoulder length brown hair and a smile as wide as Brendon’s. “This is my Aunt Sherry. She was my social worker when I was a kid, so I can vouch for her awesomeness at her job. And this is Jerry,” he said, motioning to the kid tugging on his pant legs, and pointing in the direction of the carnival. Brendon smiled down at the kid, before signing something to him, then to his Aunt, before bidding Andy farewell.

Sherry shook her head fondly at Brendon’s retreating back. “That kid, I swear. He gets so excited he forgets his manners,” Sherry said. Andy wasn’t sure if she was referring to Brendon, Jerry, or both of them. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “My nephew said you wanted to be a social worker, so I figured you could shadow me today, help me keep this thing running smoothly, and fill in where we need people.”

In the next few hours Andy learned Sherry was a hard working woman that took bull shit from no one. She handled every crises expertly, kept the wheels turning, and kept Andy extremely busy running errands and filling in where people were needed. He worked with Tyler and Josh in one of the game booths (and seriously did the soulmates pairs in this group ever spend time apart), he worked with Dan and Halsey at the food tent, he assisted Dallon with getting kids on and off one of the rides, and learned everything there was to know about the event from Sherry, like how she acquired the funding and worked with the Board at the hospital to make the event possible. By far, the best part of his day was working with the kids, getting to hear some of their stories, and seeing not only the joy on the kids’ faces, but the gratitude on their parents.

There was but one kid, he noticed, a teenage boy no older than 13 that was not so happy with his experience. Andy saw him arguing with his mother, before he angrily stormed away.  

At the end of a long day, it was an experience he was glad to have. He thanked Sherry, who promised to inform him of any internship opportunities she heard for the summer term, just as an arm slung around his shoulder. He expected both Gabe and William, but for once it was just Gabe. “Wanna help me go find William,” was the first thing out of his mouth, though. Real shocker there. Sometimes he wondered if the soulmate pairs in the club couldn’t survive without each other, though that was simply ridiculous.

He shrugged in response, knowing they’d had to find William to get back to campus. By now there was no denying to Ashley that he had been at the library all day, and he could feel the hurt grow and fester even across the distance that separated them.  

It was crying, and Gabe’s finely tuned internal GPS continuously locked onto his soulmate’s exact location, according to the Latino man, that led them to William within minutes.

 “Hey,” they heard William say to the same kid Andy saw arguing with his mother earlier who was now seated behind the empty food tent. Bill sat down on the ground next to him. “Didn’t you have fun today?”

“I did,” the kid said. “But …”

“But what?” William gently prodded, nudging the kid’s shoulder with his.

“What if it’s the last time I ever have fun?” the kid asked, and God, that one simple question felt like someone punched their fist into his chest, and started snapping off each of  his ribs to reach his heart. Gabe faltered, and put a hand on Andy’s chest to stop him, before pulling him into the shadows of the tent, hidden from William’s line of site. “My parents don’t think I know, but I heard the doctor tell them my chances weren’t good. What if I never live to see another day like today?”

William paused in his thoughts, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders. “When I was 14, the doctors told me the same thing,” William said. “They told me there was a 75% chance I wouldn’t make it till 16. I thought I’d never learn to drive, I’d never go to college, I’d never get to meet the most important person in my life, my soulmate,” he said, looking up into the shadows as if he knew Gabe was there watching him. “I wanted to feel sorry for myself, I _did_ feel sorry for myself, but then I realized if I wasn't going to make it, I couldn't spend my last days feeling sorry for myself, that I was going to make every day count. I decided I wasn’t going to die. In fact, I made a bet with my doctor, and told him that when I made it to 16, he had to bring in a giant cake for me. He did, by the way, bring me this huge pink monstrosity of a cake,” William said, nudging the kid’s shoulder again, who smiled shyly up at him. “We’re not guaranteed a certain amount of time on this Earth, no one is. Even if I hadn’t made it, even if the cancer won, I knew for certain that I was going to make every day I had left count, to do whatever I wanted to do. That is all any of us can do with our life. Wo you can have more days like this, if you want." 

The kid nodded solemnly. “I want that,” the kid said.

“I think you should also apologize to your mother,” William chided softly. “Every moment is precious, and you shouldn’t waste it fighting with the people you love.”

The kid’s eyes filled with tears once more, before he buried his face in William’s chest and sobbed. Gabe silently led them away.

They helped some of the left over volunteers clean up, until William slipped behind Gabe like a shadow, wrapping his long arms around his soulmate’s chest, and burying his face into Gabe’s back. After a moment, Gabe turned to embrace Bill. “I’m proud of you,” Gabe said, pressing a kiss into the top of William’s head. “I love you, and I’m so proud of you.”

They dropped him off in front of his dorm, having held hands and pressing chaste kiss against the others lips or cheek whenever the opportunity presented itself. For once, Andy did not begrudge them of their public displays of affection.

“So,” Gabe said, as Andy slid from the back seat of what he considered a fairly successful day, and a new found perspective on his forced acquaintances. “You want to do a threesome with us? We’re very considerate lovers, and you could use a little loosening up.”

Andy slammed the car door shut in disgust.

“You’re roommate is extremely hot, too,” he heard Gabe call to him. “We’re down for a foursome,” Gabe added just as Andy escaped inside.

When he got to his room, and collapsed on his bed, Ashley was long gone, not even a note to indicate where he'd gone. When he stumbled back in their room well after midnight, Andy didn’t ask, and Ashley didn’t tell.

*

The library was a safe haven, as it had always been for Andy. When the other kids in his high school taunted him too much in the lunch room, he ate in the library. When he lived with his brother, and his brother brought home what Andy didn’t know then were other members of his gang to party or talk business, Andy snuck out to the local library, and hid in their for hours. Sometimes he hid so well, the librarians didn’t know he was even there, and he got locked in for the night, just the way he liked it. When he lived with his grandmother, and the sounds of the streets got too loud, the fighting of the couple in the apartment next to him, and the shootings, and the chatter of the prostitutes on the corner outside his window, and the sirens that never seemed to stop, he hid from the noise at the library, even if he had to sneak into the one at his school after dark.

It was a place of quiet, a place of solitude, a place to study and learn. It was Andy’s favorite place in the world.

It was _not_ a place for harassing or bullying other people, which is just what he found when he walked to his usual corner on a Wednesday afternoon. There was someone at his table, hunched over a textbook with his back to Andy, and two people sitting two tables away hurling insults at the guy. Andy intended to stomp over to the two bullies, and tell them to fuck off, when he noticed the beige plastic hearing aids sticking out of the ears of what had to be Brendon. He rounded the table and stopped just in front of him.

Brendon jumped when he noticed him, but despite the rather crude insults being hurled in his direction, beamed at Andy. Andy frowned down at him. How could he be so nonchalant, sitting there completely unperturbed, when he was being verbally harassed?

 “Hey, Andy! Sorry my hearing aids aren’t on. Did you say something?” Brendon asked.

Ah, so that was how. He shook his head no in response to Brendon’s question.

“Care to join me?” Brendon asked, clearing some of his books to make space.

He wasn’t one for studying with other people, especially when they were as loud and obnoxious as the members of the Advocacy Club, but he sat down with a huff, glaring at the two guys who were both wearing frat shirts with greek lettering, and who were now poking fun of Brendon’s hearing aids.  He wasn’t going to let anyone get bullied like that, regardless if the victim could hear them or not. He prayed his involvement now wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass later.

“You know, standing up to them usually makes them go away,” Andy said, before Brendon could return to his textbook. Andy had gotten into quite a few fist fights in his middle school years, so much so that the school threatened to expel him. But he gained a reputation that way, that he was not someone to be messed with. After that, pretty much the entire school ignored him, except Ashley, choosing to taunt him from afar instead. It also helped that someone spread around a rumor that followed him until graduation that he murdered someone before being transferred to their school after the summer his brother was arrested, and Ashley only hung out with him either out of pity or fear for his life depending on which student you asked. Andy may have started that particular rumor and let the gossip vine run with it. Ashley, of course, disapproved. “Making them think you’re insane works too.”

“No,” Brendon disagreed, his voice low, “that gets you beat up, and your hearing aids stolen and/or destroyed.”

“Did that happen a lot?”

Brendon paused for a moment, tapping his pen against his lips, before saying, “When you’re the only kid with a disability in your entire high school, and you’re weird on top of that, you tend to get a lot of negative attention.”

He knew Brendon was speaking for a place of  experience, a place he had apparently visited far too often, and place Andy was equally experienced with. He couldn’t help glaring in the direction of the two idiots again, who were still insulting Brendon despite the fact he clearly couldn’t hear them. “Besides,” Brendon said, raising his voice, and making no attempt to hide it, “People who troll and bully other people are scientifically prove to be losers in real life, so I’m not so sure why I should be concerned with the opinions of losers, especially when they’re too stupid to figure out that I can’t actually hear them.”

Maybe Brendon did have a backbone after all. He watched in amusement as the one of the guys slammed his book down, further proving Brendon’s point, before they both swiped their belongings and stormed off.

Brendon watched them go before bursting into laugher. This was obviously a very brave, or very stupid man before him that Andy was totally not feeling fondness towards right at the moment.

They worked silently for an hour, and it was actually nice working with a person who did not try to interfere in his life every five seconds. Then, from the corner of his eye, he noticed Gabe and William walk in ruining his feeling of calm and relaxation. So much for that, he thought, but it was the person trailing behind them that gave him pause. He watched Ashley talk with Gabe and William for several minutes, before his roommate noticed him and walked over. The soulmate couple from Hell thankfully disappeared in a different direction.

“How do you know Gabe and William?” he suspiciously asked.

Ashely raised his eyes quizzically, and nodded his head in the direction of Brendon who was completely absorbed in his homework and hadn’t noticed Ashely’s presence at all.

“That’s Brendon. He’s deaf, he can’t hear us. Now talk.”

“I met them the first week of school, here in this library actually. How do you know them?” Ashley said, sliding into the seat next to him.

“I caught them having sex in the library, so they kidnapped me and forced me to be their acquaintance. I think they’re stalking me, and I have no idea why.”

“Maybe they find you fascinating,” Ashley said.

Andy snorted in response. He tried very hard to be the least fascinating and most invisible person on the planet. It was a simple system, really, called don’t get involved.

Ashley shrugged, and pulled out the same homework that Andy spent two hours doing last week, and was due in the class they had together in less than an hour.

Andy flipped his notebook over to a new page a little more aggressively than necessary, sending some of the pages Brendon had scattered on the table flying.

Brendon jerked in surprise, leaving a pink highlight diagonally across his entire textbook accidentally. “Shit,” he said, capping his highlighter with shaking hands. “I totally forgot you were here. Wait, did you multiply?”

“This is my roommate, Ashley. Ashley, this is Brendon,” he reluctantly introduced them, because his grandmother would be mortified if he forgot his manners.  

“Nice to meet  you,” Brendon said.

Ashley smiled, and nodded awkwardly in return. “I thought you said he was deaf,” Ashley leaned towards him and whispered.

“He can read lips,” Andy said, shrugging off Ashley. He just managed to regain his focus, when from seemingly across the library, a familiar voice yelled, “Brendon, we’re here to save you!”

He should have known Gabe, and subsequently William, couldn’t have gone far. Brendon remained blissfully unaware, until Gabe poked him in the side making the poor man jump again and add another crooked highlight to his book.

“We heard what happened in the library earlier,” Gabe said, to which William nodded. Both of them assumed wide stances with their arms crossed. Brendon shot his eyes over to Andy, betrayal written on his face, but Andy shrugged and shook his head. “How we know is unimportant, but we are very not happy,” Gabe said, to which William shook his head no, and said, "Very not happy."

“So we are here to escort you to your next class,” Gabe said. 

“You know, he can’t actually hear you, so yelling doesn’t help,” Andy muttered. The response from William and Gabe was positively terrifying. He didn’t know the two of them could glare like that, and in union.

“Spencer put you up to this didn’t he?” Brendon asked, stuffing his belongings into his notebook, as he fiddled with his hearing aids before popping them back in. He said goodbye to him and Ashley, before letting William and Gabe lead him off, their arms wrapped protectively around him. “I’m fine guys, really,” he heard Brendon say, before the three of them finally disappeared.

“They seem nice,” Ashely said, waggling his eyebrows.

“They’re annoying.”

“And yet you seem pretty friendly with them.”

“Not by choice.”

“I think it’s nice,” Ashley said, “that you have a friend now like you.”

_Excuse me,_ the apparently very sassy 80-year-old woman in his mind responded. Thankfully, out loud he said, “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“I just mean, I think it would be good for you to have a friend that understands what you’re going through.”

“Jesus Christ, Ash, you make it sound like I have some horrible disease or something. I’m not dying, okay? I just happen to have a little bit harder time learning than other people, and if you and everyone else could stop making such a big deal out it, that would be great.”

“Sorry,” Ashley said, starring down at his notes, and avoiding Andy’s eyes, once again backing down from a conflict like always.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today was a very, very black day in history. It hurts my soul that something like this could even happen, and that there are soulless, ignorant assholes out there who are actually condoning what happened. My heart goes out to all the families and people involved, and I hope that we can finally get the most useless Congress in the history of the United States and the dumb asses in the NRA to pull their overinflated heads out of their tiny assholes to finally make stronger gun regulations. 
> 
> Writing is and always will be my main coping mechanism, so I worked on the next part of this story to keep from crying, and decided to post it, even though it's relatively short compared to what I usually post. I also recently saw Twenty One Pilots in concert for the first time, and they were amazing, literally the best concert I have ever been to in my entire life. I quickly went from just a casual fan to an obsessed fan before the concert could even end. So a lot of Andy's opinions of their performance in this chapter are actually my opinions. And thanks to my new found obsession, you also might see some more Twenty One Pilots fanfic from me in the future as I am thinking of writing a story in this universe from Tyler's POV.

“So,” Ashley said as he lined his eyes with thick black layers of eyeliner in a way that Andy only ever admitted in his head made his best friend look incredibly attractive. “I’m going to a party tonight at a friend of a friend’s house. Want to come?” Ashley asked, stepping back from the mirror to inspect his work.

“No,” Andy immediately responded. Parties were not his friend. They were the things nightmares were made of.

“You can’t seriously be working on a Saturday night,” Ashley said. “We just finished midterms, and I know for a fact you finished all of your homework for Monday.”

“I did,” Andy said, pulling his laptop onto his lap.

“Hey,” Ashely said and plopped down onto Andy’s bed next to him after inspecting his appearance in the mirror once more. “Is this about what happened in high school? I’ll be there this time. I can promise that won’t happen.”

Andy shuddered at the memory. He’d been to a couple of parties in 10th and 11th grade, usually held at friend's of a friend's of Ashley’s, and he only ever went with Ashley, and only ever hung out with Ashley and whoever Ashley was hanging out with. But once, in 11th grade, Jackie Peterson, his lab partner for chemistry, invited him to a party that she said was at her place. It was at a time in his life that he had been going to special ed classes twice a week to meet with a tutor to help him with his homework and studying for tests. Some of the other kids in his grade had been particularly brutal in their taunts that year, but Jackie had always been nice to him. She promised it was just going to be a small party with a few of her friends, and that he could invite Ashley. There were also going to be a couple of other people there that he knew through Ashley, she said.

Well, Jackie lied. She told Ashley the party was cancelled, and made sure he didn’t have a chance to talk to his best friend before she drove him to the party. He knew instantly something was up the second he saw the head cheerleader of his school walk in with Jackson Conners, who was a year younger than him, and also in special ed classes because of a car accident when he was young that caused a permanent brain injury. He was also the kid that once tried to fit an entire ball of yarn up his nose because some of the other kids in his class dared him to. Under normal circumstances, the head cheerleader would not be caught dead anywhere near Jackson. His suspicions were confirmed when he immediately snuck out of the basement where the party was being held to go to the ‘bathroom,' when he heard two girls talking about their dates, and which one was worse. Apparently, that was the point of the party, to see which girl could bring the weirdest, dumbest, or ugliest person to the party. Jackie, in her desire to fit in with the popular girls, brought him. Andy snuck out of the house, and even though he may have been acting like a chicken shit, Andy never went to another party every again. The only person that knew why was Ashley.

Andy shrugged in response to Ashley, and pulled his knees to his chest, burying his face in his laptop and pretending to be completely absorbed on what was on his screen.

“Fine. I’ll let it go for today, but I will get you to come to a party with me, and prove that not everyone is like that,” Ashley said, grabbing the leather jacket that perfectly hugged his shoulders on his way out the door.

“Fat chance,” he told his computer screen after Ashley shut the door quietly behind him. He was perfectly content spending his nights alone in his room, or at least that’s what he told himself, and had been for the last two or so years. No need to break routine now.

Youtube was playing some random rock videos from a hardcore playlist he discovered a  little while ago when a knock on the door startled him from his near doze. He pulled his sheet up his chest and muted the song, hoping whoever was knocking would think the room empty and leave. He _knew_ who was behind that door. No one else knew where he lived and Ashley couldn’t be coming back this early.

“We know you’re in there,” William said in a sing-song voice.

“You can’t avoid us,” Gabe said. “If you don’t answer the door, we’re just going to barge in.”

Now, Andy assumed he was perfectly safe. All the dorms in his room could not be opened without a key, and immediately locked afterwards. So there was no way Gabe and William could just come in. He was completely safe from social interaction.

“Okay,  have it your way,” Gabe said.

The handle jiggled, and he tensed, relaxing when the door remained stubbornly closed, thank God. He jumped so high his head hit the wall behind him when the door swung open.

“Rise and shine, beautiful!” Gabe said, standing in the door with his arms spread out wide. William ducked below one of his arms and stepped inside.

“Seriously?” Andy groaned. “How are you two even possible?”

“Magic,” William said, wiggling his eyebrows. “But if you’re asking how we got in, your RA loves us. He gave us the master key for all the rooms in this dorm.”

“I hate both of you.”

“Lies,” Gabe said. “We’re awesome. Everyone loves us.”

Andy rolled his eyes. “What do you two want now?”

“We’re going to Josh and Tyler’s concert,” William said.

“As an official member of the Disability Advocacy Club you are required to attend,” Gabe said.

“Are you two going to carry me again if I refuse?” Andy asked, mostly joking.

“Yes,” they said in unison, both coming in close to his bed to hover him. “This is not negotiable,” Gabe said with a frown, before flipping a switch and smiling brightly down at him. Gabe then spun on his heels and threw the doors to Andy’s closet open, as William sat down on his bed uninvited.

“Are you wearing PJs at 6 pm on a Saturday?” William asked incredulously.

“I don’t get out much,” Andy said, affronted by their bluntness.

“We can see that,” Gabe said, taking several shirts out of Andy’s closest, and putting them back in. “Are black band t-shirts with the sleeves cut off the only thing you wear?”

“Yes,” he deadpanned, crossing his arms over the faded black Korn t-shirt he bought at his very first concert in 10th grade. It was a little small on him now, considering the massive growth spurt he endured in 11th grade, but it was just for sleeping in.

“Your taste in clothing is atrocious,” William said.

“It’s not that bad,” Andy shot back. “Besides, I am not the worst dressed person you know.”

“Hey,” Gabe said, standing from his closet with an ‘ah ha.’ “Ryan is blind. He has an excuse for his horrible fashion. Now here, wear this, you’ll look less terrifying,” Gabe said, throwing a pair of black skinny jeans at him and a black button down shirt with a white collar at him that his grandmother had bought him for special occasions and he had never worn. He didn’t even know he’d brought it to college with him. He wonders if his grandmother, or maybe Ashley, snuck it into his packed bags. 

“Do I have a choice?” Andy asked.

“Of course not,” William far too cheerfully said.

“What are you going to do? Force me to get dressed if I refuse?”

“If we have to,” William said, once more far too cheerfully.

Andy wasn’t willing to risk that, so he put on the clothes Gabe handed to him. Gabe and William politely turned around, but refused to leave the room, probably because they knew he’d put his dresser in front of the door if they did.  He wished he didn’t live on the 12th floor, so he could escape out the window.

When he allowed the soulmate couple from Hell to turn back around, Gabe wolf whistled at him and William slow clapped. “You look smoking hot,” William said.

“Our baby is all grown up,” Gabe said, wiping away fake tears. “Is this your wallet?” Gabe asked holding Andy’s wallet up, and pocketing it before Andy could answer. Andy knew that meant he already knew the answer, and had probably already riffled through it.

“I draw the line at eyeliner,” Andy said when Gabe grabbed Ashley’s off of his dresser and held it out to him.

Gabe and William shrugged in unison. They were like twins, the creepy kind with telepathy who went around terrifying people like in that one anime he once binged watched for no other reason than he was bored.  The soulmate couple then attached themselves to his side, pulling his arms over their shoulders and lifting him off his feet again with the pure magic they claimed they had.

“Put me down,” he protested. “I'll walk, and I even promise not to try to escape.”

The two of them shared a look, before refusing to put him down and carry him out the door. “It’s more fun this way,” William said.

“You two are so weird,” Andy complained.

“Thanks,” Gabe said.

“That was an insult,” Andy said, as Gabe kicked his door closed behind him.

“And we are insulted,” Gabe replied.

“Did you just quote Spongebob?” Andy asked.

“And did you just know that I quoted Spongebob?” Gabe said.

“You need to get out more, kid,” William said. Andy considered kicking his legs wildly just to annoy Gabe and William, but he would rather not embarrass himself his first semester in college, so he allowed the two of them to stuff him into the back of Gabe’s car without protest.

They picked up Brendon and Spencer on the way, who squeezed in next to him in the back seat until he was squished against the door. Brendon sat in the middle, and he was not wearing his hearing aids. Brendon could read lips just fine, but not in multiple directions at once,  and Andy didn’t know any sign language. Spencer translated for him if Brendon wanted to communicate with any of them and vice versa, but the two still kept mostly quiet and too themselves, leaving Andy feeling alone in the back seat, unable to hear Gabe or William over the sound of  music, and feeling awkward as fuck. He’d never heard any of the songs before, nor had he ever heard anyone transition from rap to singing, from ukulele to piano so seamlessly before. But despite the eclectic mixture of genres, it was pretty damn good.  

“Who is this?” he dared to ask.

“You likely?” William said, turning to face him with a Cheshire grin. “This is Tyler and Josh. They made it using, what was the name of that program again?”

Gabe shrugged, but Spencer answered, “Garage Band.”

“Yeah, that’s it. They’re pretty talented, aren’t they?”

“They’re even better live,” Gabe added.

“It’s just a matter of time before a major label catches on and signs them,” William said.

Andy thought they were being far too optimistic out of devotion to their friends. “Tyler, though, he doesn’t seem like …” Andy trailed off, hoping he wasn’t insulting on their close friends.

“Like your stereotypical extroverted, outgoing frontman? No, that would not be Tyler,” William said. “But he’s just that right mix of eccentric and genius to make it work for him. You’ll love them, I promise.”

The bar was packed when they finally arrived, at capacity the bouncer said, and turned them away. Individually, Gabe and William could charm a cane and sunglasses away from a blind man (which he’d seen happen). Together, they were unstoppable, and the five of them were let into the bar within minutes to the protests of the many people waiting in line.

“Wow, they’re popular,” Andy yelled to Gabe over the enormous din inside the bar. The bouncer wasn’t lying when he said it was beyond capacity. The bodies were tightly pressed together, sweat from one brow running down the arm of the person next to them. His shoes stuck to the floor with each step, and the scent of stale beer pervaded his senses. This was his kind of scene, he loved it. It reminded him of all the concerts he snuck into in high school, and it'd been a while since he'd seen a good band play live. He would never admit it to Gabe and William, but he was kind of looking forward to it. 

“We’re going to go find everyone else,” Spencer yelled above the noise.

“You guys want us to get you anything at the bar?” William yelled back.

Andy shook his head no. Brendon and Spencer shared a look, and without even signing anything to each other, Spencer answered, “Just a couple of beers,” he answered (and how soulmates did that still confused him) before handing William a $20. Spencer grabbed Brendon’s hand, and started pushing through the crowd in the direction of the stage, while Gabe and William disappeared in the opposite direction. He had just a second to decide who to follow before he lost all four of them. He didn’t trust any of them enough not to leave him here to find his own ride home (even though they kidnapped him), but he ended up following Spencer and Brendon to the stage.

Everyone from the Disability Advocacy club was there, including a couple faces he didn’t know. “ _Andy meet Andy_ ,” Joe, the incense smelling guy, told him and started laughing hysterically. Andy was starting to wonder if the dude was on drugs. Halsey’s friend Haley flirted mercilessly with him, until she noticed the three lines tattooed around his right wrist, his soul mark visible since he rolled up the sleeves of the uncomfortable shirt Gabe and William forced him in. “It must be nice having known your soulmate that long,” Haley said as wistfully as she could whilst still yelling.

Andy awkwardly shrugged in response.

“Did Gabe and William kidnap you again?” Patrick asked, almost apologetically.

Andy nodded, but didn’t say out loud that this time he wasn’t even that mad. He was actually kind of excited to see Tyler and Josh perform if they were any as good as their CD sounded.

“You’ll be glad they did,” Pete said, throwing an arm around Patrick’s shoulder and tugging his soulmate closer. Patrick smiled up at him, and rested his head on Pete’s shoulder. Andy ignored the slight tinge in his chest at the sight. "You look smoking hot, by the way, in that shirt." 

"Thanks," Andy begrudgingly said, refusing to admit maybe Gabe and William did him a solid. 

“They’re going on in 10,” Halsey shouted, as she pushed her way through the crowd where everyone was right next to the stage. Dan followed closely behind her, being led by Halsey by the hand through the crowd. He briefly wondered if there was something more than friendship between them.

A cheer rose through the crowd at Halsey’s announcement (started by, of course, the members of the Disability Advocacy Club) the noise so loud he could feel his eardrums vibrating, threatening to shatter like glass at just the right pitch.

Andy submerged himself in the crowd, got lost in the press of the bodies. In high school, this was his favorite thing to do, being part of the crowd at a concert, everyone brought together by the same passion, the music washing away their differences.

Patrick and Pete chanted, “We want Tyler,” while Gabe and William responded with, “We want Josh Dun,” until the whole crowd was involved, with everyone on the left chanting “Tyler” and everyone on  the right responding with “Josh Dun,” back and forth like a volleyball until the two men finally took to the stage.

Gabe and William were right. On stage, Tyler did not seem like the shy, awkward teen he’d had dinner with that one night, he looked like he belonged on the stage, and his exuberance was equally matched by Josh on the drums. Andy could see, suddenly, why they were soulmates.

The drums were heavy, but the beat light, and then Tyler launched into his first rap, words flying from his mouth so fast Andy could barely keep up. There were more than a few dedicated fans smooshed right up against the stage that knew every single word. Andy had been that dedicated fan for many different bands in the past.

He let himself get lost in the music, let his body sway to the rhythm, felt the heavy drums reverberate through him. There was one song in particular, Migraine, he thought Tyler called it, that spoke to him more than the others. Never had he heard a more accurate description of the horror that went on inside of his head before, and yet at the same time never had he heard a more inspirational song.

At the end of their set, he found himself cheering “Encore” with the rest of the crowd, and then "One more song," after they finished the encore. 

“We wish  we could play you more,” Josh laughed in the microphone after he stole it from Tyler. “But the bar owner says we’re not allowed to.” 

“We really appreciate everyone coming out here and supporting us,” Tyler said as Josh held out the microphone to him. “Every time we play a concert, we always worry no one is going to show up, and we’re blown away by the support every time. Thank you. It means a lot to us.”

The resulting cheer was near deafening, and the force of it almost physically pushed Andy forward.

“We are Twenty One Pilots and so are you!” Tyler finished, before the two bowed together. 

“How does Tyler rap that fast?” Andy asked Gabe in amazement, as Tyler and Josh started packing up their gear. Brendon, Spencer, Pete, and Jon (after leaving Ryan with Patrick) jumped on stage to help, not before they each hugged Tyler and Josh. 

“Magic,” Gabe said, moving his hands in the shape of a rainbow.

“Is that your answer to everything?” Andy frowned.

“Yes,” Gabe proudly answered. 

“You guys were amazing,” he heard Halsey shout, startling him. He turned just in time to see the woman throw herself at the two very sweaty men emerging jumping off the stage. Josh easily caught her in his arms and twirled her in his arms.

“Thanks, beautiful,” Josh said, kissing her cheek.

Tyler blushed profusely as Hasley’s friends and a few other men and women gushed over their performance. William wrapped his arms around Tyler from behind and stole him away, Gabe doing the same to a laughing Josh. They deposited the two musicians in the midst of their friends who gathered around them, though Tyler’s cheeks were still bright red. The plethora of compliments from their friends, who each took turns hugging the two, probably didn’t help Tyler’s blush.

They could have sucked, and Andy was certain every single one of his new acquaintances would have told Josh and Tyler they were awesome. They all seemed to have the mom filter when it came to their friends, both the 'my kid can do no wrong' kind of filter, and 'my kid is more awesome than yours' filter, with a side of 'mess with my kid and I will fuck you up' added in. For God’s sake, Ryan showed up and he was blind, and Brendon showed up even though he couldn’t even hear them. This was a group of friends unlike any he had ever experienced before outside of Ashley.

These people confused him. In his mind, he called them the Disability Advocacy Club, but they were much more than just a club, perhaps even more than just friends.

A family.

And maybe, just maybe, a tiny part of him locked away and never looked at any more like the safety blanket he had at three that his mother gave him and he just couldn’t seem to throw away, yeah, maybe that part yearned to belong to this family, too.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I keep changing the number of chapters, but there really is only one more after this. Also, I do mean things to some of the characters in this chapter, but I mostly(?) make it better.

“Can I document your historic rise to fame?” Brendon asked, as they were all hanging out in the bar after Tyler and Josh’s performance, squished around a tiny table together, constantly jostled by the people walking and dancing by. “I’ve been told I’m an excellent director. I’ll do your story justice.”

“Sure thing,” Josh said, throwing an arm around Brendon’s shoulder, and pulling him closer, causing Brendon to stumble. “Shit, sorry,” Josh apologized. “I totally forgot about the balance thing.”

“I’m too drunk to read lips right now,” Brendon said. He tipped his head backward, resting it on Spencer’s shoulders, even though Josh’s arm was still around his shoulder, and stared up at his soulmate with wide brown eyes. Spencer laughed at him, steadying his stumbling soulmate with one hand while signing with the other.

“Sweet,” Brendon said flopping his head forward to stare in Josh’s direction. “Thanks dude,” he said, and kissed Josh on the check, something Brendon liked to do with all of his close friends. Andy may be warming up to these people, but he was never going to let _that_ happen. 

“Guess what, guess what, guess what, guess what?” Halsey squealed as she tore through the crowd towards their table, Dan hot on her heels. “Oh my God you guys are never going to guess what just happened.  I can’t even … Oh my God … This is so exciting,” she added, vibrating with excitement. She latched onto the arm of Josh that wasn’t around Brendon still with a two-handed white knuckled grip.

“Like oh my God, what?” Josh teased her, watching in amusement as she tugged on his arm like a little kid in a candy store.

“I just talked to _the_ Shred Rogers on the phone,” Halsey said.

“ _The_ Shred Rogers,” Tyler said, his eyes wide. “As in the lead singer of the Shred and the Dirty Ds? Arguably one of the biggest punk rock bands of the last 10 years who’s music helped launch the alternative movement, and changed the course of music and history forever.”

“Uh, yeah,” Halsey said, raising her eyebrow at Tyler and glancing at Josh with a wry smile. “Apparently one of his ‘close personal friends’ was here at the bar tonight, and I may have lied and told the guy I was your manager, but that’s beside the point. They want … this is so exciting,” she said, bouncing up and down on her feet.

“Well, spit it out,” Pete teased her as both Josh and Tyler leaned in closer to her.

“They want you to open for them!” she said, and emitted a high pitched squeal. “It would be just one concert, here in LA in May. But you’d be the first opening act for Shred and the Dirty Ds. You can’t so no. Please don’t say no.”

Both Tyler and Josh were shocked into complete silence. Tyler looked like someone completely froze every single muscle in his body, while Josh gaped like a fish out of water.

“I, I, I don’t know,” Tyler finally said, shaking his head.

Josh released Brendon to grab Tyler’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “It’s okay,” he said. “You can do it. I believe in you. You’ll be amazing.”

Tyler melted like an ice cube under the hot desert sun. “Okay.”

“Of course we’ll do it,” Josh told Halsey, bumping his shoulder against Tyler’s.

Halsey squealed in delight. “Okay, good, because I already told Shred you would. Oh my god,” she said, grabbing the lapels of Dan’s shirt and tugging him so they were face to face. “I just spoke with Shred Rogers on the phone! And I totally kept my calm the entire time!”

“That you did,” Dan said, patting her head with an amused smile.

She tore away from Dan, and launched herself at Tyler and Josh, hugging them both around the waist. “There are a lot of details to work out still, but we can work all that out later, and I am totally going to manage everything no arguing. Right now, it’s time to celebrate,” she said, grabbing a shot off the table and throwing it back.

“Fucking told you you guys were going to be famous rock stars,” Pete said, downing his own shot.

“This is so cool,” Dallon added. “Now I can tell everyone I know famous musicians.”

“Hey now, we’re not famous yet,” Josh said, though his smile was wide enough to stretch across the Niagara Falls.

Brendon rolled his eyes at them, and shook his head no at the shot Spencer offered to him. “Historic,” he reiterated his earlier words to them. “People crave authenticity, and there’s not a whole lot of music out there more authentic than yours.”

“We want to at least finish college, though,” Tyler said, with a shy smile. “We don’t want to leave you guys just yet,” he awkwardly teased, but refused to raise his eyes from the table. Josh nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah, yeah,” Gabe said, throwing an arm around his soulmate’s shoulder and pulling William closer to him. “We love you guys, too.”

*

They stayed until the bar closed, and said their goodbyes to the others at the door. The walk to the car was silent; each of the soulmate pairs Andy came with content to huddle close to their partner in the cooling air of a cloudless fall night.

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Andy asked Gabe, before sliding in behind the passenger seat.

“Bone dry, dude,” Gabe reassured him. “Now everyone buckle up.”

He leaned his head against the window as Gabe pulled out of the parking lot, watching curiously as Brendon and Spencer communicated in shrugs, facial ticks, the occasional sign, and a few nods in Gabe and William’s direction. Sometimes he wondered if the two could actually read each other’s minds. Multiple soulmate pairs had claimed to be able to throughout history, but it had never been scientifically proven possible.

“S-So,” Spencer stuttered, as Brendon pulled something out of his coat jacket, fiddled with them briefly, before popping them into his ears. Something in Spencer’s voice alerted William, causing him to turn down the music. “If the offer still stands, Brendon and I are in. For tonight only.”

William whipped around in his seat to so fast he might have given himself whiplash. “Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?”

“Yes,” Brendon answered in a deep sultry purr, and it hit Andy then exactly what they were talking about.

“Are you sure?” William asked, wrinkling his nose.

“Want us to prove it to you?” Brendon coyly said.

“Uh, yeah, actually,” William said, sharing a glance with Gabe, his eyes widening when Brendon surged forward to kiss him, though it was chaste and brief.  

“You sure your soulmate isn’t too drunk to make that kind of decision?” Gabe asked in a startling moment of seriousness from the older man.

“He’s not that drunk,” Spencer assured. “And yeah, we talked about this before coming out tonight.”

“Well, in that case,” William said, grabbing Brendon’s shirt and pulling him in for a hot, wet kiss. William wrapped his hand around the back of Brendon’s head, urging his mouth open with his tongue.

“Good thing I brought my hearing aids with me,” Brendon said, pulling away from the kiss breathless and dazed. “I don’t want to miss any of this.”

William licked his lips, eyes trained on Brendon’s lips, the lips even Andy had to admit were perfect for certain, uh, sexual activities.

Andy had never had sex before. It wasn't that he didn’t want to or had no interest in sex, per say, he’d had his fair share of wet dreams, usually about a certain, specific person. It was just that he’d never really thought about it much. He’d never really _given_ himself the time to think about. Throughout high school, he’d been so busy with school, and studying, and extra curricular activities, so that he could get into a good college, that he’d practically fallen into bed each night and fallen asleep before his head hit the pillow. Plus, he was poor. He had one ancient desktop all throughout high school that he shared with his grandmother for God’s sake, and he lived in a tiny apartment with very thin walls with the woman. That thought alone was enough to keep his hands away from his dick, and his thoughts away from anything sex related. And it’s not like he had many other opportunities or access to private places to stumble across porn or even attempt to masturbate. He didn’t think he was asexual. He knew the interest was there lurking around in his subconscious under his plethora of excuses, occasionally popping into his conscious mind during dreams that made him wake up with sticky sheets during middle and high school. He was just a late bloomer who was too busy for sex. That’s all.

Andy cleared his throat loudly as one of William’s hands slid under Brendon’s shirt to join Spencer’s. The two  pulled apart from their kiss sheepishly. “You guys are at least going to drop me off first, right?” Andy asked.

His question was met with nothing, but laughter.

“I hate all of you.”

*

“Where were you?” Ashley asked before Andy could even close their door room behind him. He was trying very hard not to think about the scene he just left in Gabe’s car, and what those four were going to do once behind closed doors.

“Out, at concert,” Andy said, unbuttoning his shirt and throwing it on the floor with the rest of his dirty clothes.

Ashley frowned hard, his nose crinkling as he eyed the discarded shirt. “With your new friends?” Ashley asked, crossing his arms.

“I wouldn’t call them friends, but yeah.”

“I see,” Ashley said. Andy narrowed his eyes at the tone in Ashley’s voice. “So apparently you can go to a party with these acquaintances,  that you keep claiming you don’t even like, but you can’t go to a party with me, your best friend?”

“Gabe and William kidnapped me. They literally carried me to their car and shoved me in. What do you want me to do?” he said, snatching his pj shirt off the dresser.

“I want you to care,” Ashley said, the fight already drained out of him as he sat on his bed, hands folded in his lap. “What does it say about your feelings for me when you’d rather hang out with some strangers than your …”

“Your what, Ash? Soulmate? Is that what you were going to say?” he said a bit more coldly than he intended, his back turned to Ashley as slipped on the sleep shirt William and Gabe forced him out of earlier.

“Maybe,” Ashley said with a shrug, and then shook his head. “No, yes. Yes, I am, but 90% of the time you refuse to even acknowledge it.”

“I told you, I’m not ready yet,” he said. He loved Ashley, he really did. He was the only person that had ever stood by him throughout the years. But he just did not have the time to pursue a romantic relationship right now. There were more important things in life.

“It’s been 15 years, Andy. Fifteen years since we met, and six since we found out we were soulmates. I believed you when you said you weren’t ready then, because neither was I, and I believed you all throughout high school. But now? What is it really? Are you asexual? I can handle being platonic soulmates. Is it me? Are you just not interested in me?”

“It’s not you,” he said, clenching the hem of his shirt in his hands as he faced the wall still. He felt a tiny bit guilty. He couldn’t help the way that he felt obviously, but sometimes, when he allowed himself the luxury to think about it, Andy felt guilty for not even putting  at least some effort into their soulmate relationship beyond friendship,  always putting everything else he could find first.

He’d known Ashley was his soulmate, and vice versa, since the day Ashley’s mother sat them both down and gave them the birds and the bees talk, complete with an explanation of what soulmates were, and what their tattoos meant. He had three lines tattooed around his right wrist, thin and unobtrusive, but in black ink for everyone to see. Ashley had the same exact tattoo on his left wrist.

Throughout history, a small number of the general population contained  plain black lines tattooed around their wrist with anywhere from 1 lines to 5, though the actual percentage of the population had decreased significantly over time. Up until the 1500s, people born with this type of tattoo were considered defunct, anomalies, and it was widely believed across the various nations that their tattoos were flawed, and somehow the words got messed up. Many cultures believed it was because the _person_ bearing the tattooed was flawed. Some cultures even thought they had the devil in them and sacrificed them to their Gods to prevent the Gods from reigning bad luck or acts of nature against them. In others, they were simply ostracized or treated as the lowest scum of society. During the Salem Witch trials, all but one of the men and women killed had a similar tattoo to Andy.

It wasn’t until the late 1500s, near the end of the Renaissance, when someone finally postulated what the true meaning of the tattoos meant. It was discovered by none other than a woman (though history would later try to cover that up and place credit on her soulmate) that each line represented a year of age. If you had three lines tattooed around your wrist, then that meant you met your soulmate at three years of age, before you were old enough to speak or old enough to remember your first words to them. Furthermore, the woman history tried to forget discovered soulmate pairs had matching tattoos, but on opposite wrists. It wasn’t until the 1800’s that most cultures finally accepted the evidence and the theory was generally accepted as truth, because despite an overwhelming amount of evidence gathered over the centuries, the general population was always slow to accept the truth out of sheer ignorance and stubbornness.

Andy was sure he met lots of people at the age of three, but none of them had the same exact matching tattoo on their opposite wrist like his best friend did. It didn’t take a genius, like Ashley, to figure out his childhood best friend was also his soulmate.

Andy found people of both genders attractive, but he had never explored his sexuality. He knew, however, that he was attracted to Ashley if the occasional wet dream about him during high school and the warm flush he sometimes felt when Ash looked at him said anything. But he just could not take it the next step yet, and he could cite college, and homework, and this and that as excuses, but honeslty he wasn’t sure anymore what was holding him back.

“I just, I don’t know, okay? I just can’t do it right now,”  he said, clenching the fabric of his shirt so tightly he feared it might rip. “I told you you could date other people,” he added, though he had always been secretly glad Ashley never took him up on that offer.

“I don’t want to date other people,” Ashley softly said. “And I can understand if you’re really not ready. But can’t  you at least care for me as a friend until then?”

“Hey, I  …” he said, finally turning away from the wall to look at his best friend. Whatever sentiment he may have been about to utter died on his lips when he saw Ashley turn to face the opposite wall, his headphones firmly settled over his ears, music flooding from the speakers.

And yeah, maybe Andy deserved that.

 *

Tuesday was a good day.

His 8am class was cancelled because his professor’s car wouldn’t start, so he got an extra hour of sleep. He was all caught up on his homework for the entire week, and the next, and for once had actual free time. He could have used the time to reflect on his relationship with Ash, but he was still too sc – No, he totally wasn’t scared, just – He didn’t really have an excuse, so he ended up taking a walk to clear his head.

Andy had known since the tender of age of seven, the age in which Ashley and he had their first fight, that Ashley hated confrontation and would just shut down. Therefore, unless he was super pissed off, Ashley never pushed the issue and almost always let it go after a good night’s rest. This time was no different. Ashley did what Ashley _always_ did and pretended the argument never happened. At the same time, though, this fight seemed  completely different. Come morning, Ash still pretended everything was fine, but there a strain to their usual conversation. It lacked fluidity and normalcy and Ashley took off shortly after waking. They were still as close as ever, and yet they had never been farther apart. He wanted to talk to Ashley about it, but he didn’t know what to say, didn’t have the words yet because he wasn’t quite sure how he felt. In the end, Andy started spending more time in the library and less in his room, and Ashley started spending time … He didn’t even know where. Had Ashley made other friends since he got to college? He really didn’t know. God, he was awful at this whole relationship thing.

He blamed the semi-permanent awkwardness that had settled over him and Ashley for his willingness to hang out with Gabe, William, and a few other people associated somehow with members of the club, but whom he’d never actually seen at one of the few meetings he’d been to, like the Joe guy who always smelled funny.

His first mistake was acknowledging Gabe and William when they waved hello from across the quad. He rolled his eyes at their twin exaggerated shocked expressions, before making his way over, which could be considered his second mistake.

“I knew it,” Gabe said. “You do love us.”

“We’re pretty irresistible,” William said, winking at his soulmate.

“Brendon and Spencer certainly thought so,” Andy said dryly.

“Was that a joke? Oh my God, that was a joke,” Gabe said, feigning a Hollywood faint, they type women used to do in old black and white films.

“And now I regret it.”

Gabe opened his mouth to retort, but William placed his hand on his soulmate’s forearm . The two silently communicated for a moment  - he still didn’t understand how soulmates could do that, because he and Ashley definitely couldn’t – before William said, “We were just about to head over to Joe’s place. Wanna come?”

“Sure,” he easily agreed with a shrug of his shoulders. It couldn’t hurt, right?

Joe lived in a house just off-campus in a row of run-down houses typically rented out by students. This particular house contained a deck that looked like it would collapse if a squirrel so much as landed on it, and paint that was peeling off the siding. A shingle slide off the roof as Gabe and William led him down the driveway and landed at his feet.  The stairs to the side door dipped and creaked under his weight, his shoe catching on a nail sticking out off one the boards. The door barely clung to life on the rusty hinges and groaned as Gabe forced it open. Pretty standard, from what Andy had seen at least, for off-campus housing for students.

“Joe rents this place with Pete, Patrick, and Andy H.,” William explained, as he lead him through the kitchen with suspicious brown stains on the peeling wallpaper, and a sink piled high with moldy dishes. The entire house smelled like stale beer, mold, and a few other unmentionables.

Gabe and William led him up a narrow set of steep stairs that lead to a dark, windowless hallway, before knocking on the last door on the right and saying something that sounded like Spanish.

“Enter mi amigo,” a voice that he thought belonged to Joe said.

A billow of strange smelling smoke surged from the room enveloping them in its fold as they entered the room. Ryan was lying on the only bed, twirling his cane in his hands, Jon sitting on the bed by his feet, one hand wrapped around Ryan’s ankle. He waved a lazy hello. Joe was lounging on a bean bag chair, something Andy didn’t even know existed anymore.

“Found it for free in a dumpster,” Joe explained when he saw Andy staring at it. “Who would throw out something this awesome?”

“Yeah,” is all Andy said as he commandeered the desk chair, as Gabe and William sat next to Joe on the questionably dirty floor. _What is that smell?_ he thought. It tickled at his memory, like it was something he should know.

“This is some awesome shit,” Ryan said. “I can almost see colors again. What did you say the strain was?”

“Bruce Banner,” Joe said, grabbing a dirty sock off the floor and throwing it at Ryan as he giggled. Jon tried to catch it, but was slow to react, and the sock ended up on Ryan’s face. “I don’t want to know what that is, do I?” Ryan asked, as Jon snatched the sock away and threw it back at Joe.

“No,” Jon said, giggling to himself.

“Sorry, dude,” Joe said between giggles. “I always forget you’re blind.”

“Don’t remind me. You’re ruining my buzz,” Ryan whined.

“Well, I can certainly fix that,” Joe said, reaching back to grab a clear plastic bag filled some sort of green leafy substance from the dresser behind him.

“Oh, gimme,” Gabe said, snatching the bag from Joe. “You seem too high to roll it anyways.”

“I’ll have you know, I am not that high, just lazy,” Joe argued.

The pieces all snapped together in Andy’s brain in that moment. How could he have been so naïve? “Is that pot?”

Joe raised one eyebrow at him, before sharing a look with Gabe and jerking his head in Andy’s direction. Gabe shrugged in response.

“Chill dude,” Joe eventually said. “Ryan and Gabe are totally legal card carriers.”

Andy narrowed his eyes in response. “Then why are you the one with the bag?” He could not, absolutely could not be caught with pot. No government agency would ever hire him if he had that on his record. He could even get kicked out of UCLA. He worked far too hard to get here. There was no way he was going to risk his entire carefully planned out future for people he barely knew. “I just remembered I have an assignment to do. Gotta go.”

“Okay,” William said, drawing the word out as Andy jumped to his feet so quickly it caused the desk swivel chair to spin in circles.

“See you at club meeting tonight,” Gabe said with an off-handed wave as Andy slipped out the door. Yeah, there was no way that was happening.

Andy escaped out the back door and didn’t look back.

*

Andy skipped the DAC club meeting that night, and the next week, and the week after that. Every time he saw someone from the club he carefully ducked behind whatever was closest, and waited for them to pass or move out of sight before moving out into the open, even if it made him late for his own classes. Gabe and William, perhaps sensing he wanted to be alone, actually respected his privacy and didn’t try to kidnap him once in the weeks that followed.

It was better this way. Andy didn’t have time for friends.

Things were still weird with Ashley. Their friendship lacked the easy casualness that had always been there, and so they spent more and more time apart, drifting further and further way, like Andy was a deserted island and Ashley was on a life raft paddling farther and farther away to inhabited land.

That, too, he decided, was for the best.

He headed to the dining room, and casually glanced through the wall of windows leading to the dining room closest to his dorm room, scanning to make sure no one he knew was there. He spotted Ashley sitting with a group of people he didn’t know, nor had he ever met, his back to Andy. They seemed friendly, talking and laughing with one another, an easy camaraderie between them.

He ignored the way his stomach dropped as he turned on his heels and walked away to the dining hall on the complete other side of campus.

It would be another night eating alone, which was totally fine. That’s the way he liked it, he told himself.

As he slipped away into the shadows encroaching across campus under the setting sun, he missed the way Ashley turned to watch him go.

After grabbing a light dinner he wasn’t sure he was hungry enough to eat anymore, Andy slunk into the booth the farthest back he could go in the least busiest dining hall on campus. People rarely sat in this section, because the light directly above constantly flickered. His peace was shattered when he saw the familiar bright red hair of Josh get up from one of the tables on other end of the dining hall followed closely by Tyler. He slide down in his seat, hoping he was hidden enough to go unnoticed. However, when he peered around the corner of the booth to see if they had gone, he awkwardly made eye contact with Josh.

Josh smiled and waved enthusiastically drawing Tyler’s attention. Andy didn’t like the look on Tyler’s face. It looked too much like scrutiny mixed with a side of sympathy. He cringed when he saw them both walk in his direction, but straightened up and pasted on as pleasant of a look as he could muster. He was told he had resting bitch face, it wasn’t easy to not look angry.

“Hey, uh hi,” Andy said when they stopped at his table.

“Hey Andy, missed you at the last few meetings,” Josh said. “We were just done eating, but we could stay a few extra minutes and sit with you.”

“No, that’s okay,” Andy said, shooting his eyes to Tyler and back.

“Are you sure – ” Josh, started, but Tyler cut him off.

“Hey, babe. Can I talk to Andy alone for a few minutes?”

“Uh, sure,” Josh said, his face puzzled. “I’ll just uh, wait over there,” he said, jerking his thumbs in the direction of the door.

“Thanks,” Tyler said, waiting until Josh was out of audible range before continuing. “I know you’re not looking for my advice, and you may not even want it, but I’m going to tell you anyways, because I think you need to hear it,” Tyler said. Andy attempted to retort, but Tyler quickly cut him off. “I heard what happened, and I can understand why you freaked out a little, because I’m not into the whole recreational drug use either. And I also know that being alone sometimes is awesome, and we all need alone time to recharge and reflect.  But Andy, you can’t spend your entire life alone. Sometimes you have to have friends to make life worthwhile, and sometimes you need to spend time with those friends, and sometimes that means accepting their quirks and flaws just like they accept yours,” he confidently said, before shuffling his feet and looking down at the ground. “That’s all, yeah, I just … I’m going to go now,” he stuttered, turning on his heels and walking away.

That was good, because Andy didn’t know what to say in response anyways.

*

Andy tried hard not to think too much about Tyler’s words, but … Was he really setting himself up for an entire life of loneliness? Was it possible that despite Ashley being his soulmate, he could keep saying ‘I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready,’ until it was too late? And had he let himself become so consumed by the fear of commitment that he couldn’t even make friends anymore?

Thankfully, he was startled from his troubled thoughts by a cacophony of commotion coming from around the corner. It was well past 2am on a Monday morning, far too late to be walking around campus by himself.  He stuck to the shadows of the buildings, just off the path to remain unnoticed so as not to get caught up in what he assumed were probably a bunch of drunken idiots causing a scene.  As he neared, the sounds clarified into a thud as someone hit the ground, the quick shuffle and scuffs of shoes across the ground, and a grunt of pain, the unmistakable sounds of someone getting their ass kicked that he recognized coming from too many dark alleyways near his apartment.

When he rounded the corner, he saw three guys surrounding some poor sucker on the ground on the other side of the quad. One of the dudes in a blue button down shirt and khaki shorts kicked the guy on the ground, and Andy could hear the responding grunt of pain across the distance. _Just keep walking_ , he told himself, pulling his hood down lower over his eyes and walking faster, nearly touching the wall of the building to his right to remain unseen. Growing up with his brother in a rough neighborhood taught Andy _not_ to get involved. Getting involved would get him beat up, or worse arrested. No one would believe the poor kid from a rough neighborhood over what was clearly wealthy douchebags with lawyers in their pocket.  Besides, whatever the guy on the ground did, he probably deserved a beating.

Maybe.

He was not so callous as to completely ignore it, though. He stopped briefly to call the cops as he walked by. They could deal with it. _If they even bother to show up,_ he thought.

As he rushed by, from the corner of his eyes, he saw two of the attackers pull the poor kid off the ground. The guy in blue button grabbed something from the kid, and threw it on the ground, crushing it under the heel of his loafers. Andy was just about to turn the corner and leave the all too familiar scene behind when he heard a familiar voice say, “it’s not my fault your ex-frat was full of idiots.” The comment earned what Andy now realized was Brendon a punch to the gut.

Brendon was probably the last person in the world who deserved this, but Andy _would_ not get involved. He absolutely, positively could not. It was the number one rule his brother taught him, and he couldn’t risk getting expelled over getting involved in a fight. He learned the hard way that helping people always lead to disaster for him.

Always.

He stopped long enough to snap a few pictures. He’d have Ashley send them anonymously to Brendon so at least he’d have evidence of his attackers. Maybe then they wouldn’t get away with it, though he seriously doubted that. The police were already on their way (he hoped), there was absolutely no reason to intervene and face the inevitable backlash of trying to help someone. No reason at all.

Two of the attackers held Brendon back as the guy in the blue button down punched Brendon in the mouth. Under the light provided by the panic button ( _a lot of help that shit provided_ ), he could see Brendon spit out blood on the guy, earning him another punch to the face.

That was his cue to walk faster and hurry up and leave already, but his legs felt like cement for some odd reason and he slowed to a crawl.

He missed what the guy in the blue shirt said next, but Brendon’s yelling when he said, “I can’t hear you, you fucking dumbass, you broke my hearing aids.  But if you’re trying to intimidate me, it’s not going to work. You think you’re the first person to pick on the deaf kid? You don’t scare me,” Brendon said sounding for all his worth like he actually believed that.

Andy remembered his own miserable high school days of being the _weird_ kid, too, the kid everybody hated. There wasn’t a day that went by where at least one of the other kids made fun of him, called him stupid or retarded, pushed him around, or beat him up just because he was different from them. Ashley was his only friend during those rough days, a friend who stood by him, and helped protect him from the bullies.  He wondered if Brendon had anybody stand up for him like that?

 _Fuck,_ he thought remembering Tyler’s words to him.

Maybe this was how he changed. Maybe this is how he started living for himself and not for a dream.

He knew had to turn around and help then, only he realized that subconsciously he already _had_ turned around. He stopped himself before he ran out into the open, though, to take off his sweater and put it on over his backpack to make himself appear bigger. He was just one guy against three; he needed every advantage he could create right now. He grabbed the knife from his combat boots that he was definitely not supposed to have on campus, but refused to go anywhere without (it was rule number two of living in a rough neighborhood always be prepared for a fight), and headed towards the scene.

“Let him go, now,” Andy said, staying shrouded in darkness to appear more threatening.

“What are you going to do?” the guy in the blue shirt mockingly asked. “Fight the three of us for this piece of shit?”

“I only need to stab one of you to make the other two run off screaming like little girls,” he said, taking a defensive position. He was about 90 percent positive he could take all three regardless. They were just bullies, and bullies will always be cowards.

The guy in the blue shirt scowled. “Fine,” he said like he was doing Andy a favor as he rolled his eyes. He snapped his fingers like this was some sort of goddamn 1950’s mafia film, and the two other guys let go of Brendon. One of them pushed hard on Brendon’s back so he stumbled towards Andy, who caught him with his free hand. He wasn’t stupid enough to drop the knife, as the three guys started to leave.

Fortunately for him, he heard the approaching feet just in time to hide the knife in his sweater as the police arrived.

For LA, that was  a pretty quick response time.

*

Andy already gave his statement to the police, and he handed over the pictures he took. He called Spencer, too, after Brendon grabbed his cellphone, typed in the number, and mouthed just one word: Spencer. Said soulmate had screeched ‘WHAT!’ when Andy told him, a chair clattering to the ground so noisily he could hear it through the phone, before Spencer promised he was on his way. Andy did more than his solid duty for the day, so he was not sure why he was standing with his arms crossed staring down the paramedic working on Brendon who was sitting in the back of an ambulance.

The paramedic pressed gauze to the cut above Brendon’s right eye that was swollen shut, while Brendon pressed gauze to his split lip.  “Are you hurt anywhere else?” the paramedic asked.

Brendon looked more panicked than he did when the three guys were beating him up. Usually, Brendon was the first person to jump in and explain his condition, but his eyes shot up to Andy before looking back at the paramedic, the fear apparent on his face.

“He’s deaf,” Andy explained for him. “He’s usually pretty good at reading lips, but I don’t think he can right now.”

“Because of the shock?” the paramedic asked sweetly, and it’s a rhetorical question, but Andy rolls his eyes, because really? _Really?_

“No, because his eye is swollen shut, so he can’t see well enough to read your lips right.”  _Idiot,_ he added in his head, or at least he thought it was in his head.

“Oh,” the paramedic said looking properly chastised. “Are you his friend? Do you know sign language?”

“I don’t, but his boyfriend is on the way, and he knows sign language,” he said, shuffling his feet, and stuffing his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, mentally shouting at Spencer to hurry the fuck up.

He heard Spencer shout Brendon’s name, and the sound of multiple pairs of feet rushing towards them. He wouldn’t be surprised if the entire Disability Advocacy Club knew already. “That’s the boyfriend,” he said, jerking his thumb in the direction Spencer’s running from. Just like he thought, Spencer was not alone. Patrick and Pete were hot on his heels. 

“I think they broke his hearing aids,” Andy explained. Spencer nodded his head distractedly, placing a hand on Andy’s shoulder as he passed by. The relief on Brendon’s face was instantaneous when Spencer stepped in front of him. Brendon pointed to his ear, and then signed something with the free hand not holding the gauze to his lip. Spencer’s shoulders drew up to his ears, and Andy could see the scowl settling on his face as he signed something in response.

 The paramedic touched Spencer’s tense shoulders. “I need to know if he’s hurt anywhere else,” she said. “Can you translate?”

“He ribs,” Spencer said without even signing to Brendon first. Andy wasn’t sure if it was just another one of those weird soulmate powers the two seemed to have, or if Brendon already told him.

Brendon lifted up his shirt to show the paramedic at her prompting, and she reached out to touch them when Spencer’s hand clamped around her wrist.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to release me,” she tightly said.

“Sorry, sorry,” Spencer said, releasing his grip, his cheeks stained bright pink. “He was abused as a kid, and he’s still a little iffy about strangers touching him when he doesn’t have his hearing aids, and sometimes I get that caveman mentality when it comes to my soulmate, you know,” he rambled. 

“I understand,” he said, her expression softening. “Let’s get him strapped down and to the hospital. Can you translate? We need his consent first before we can take him in.”

“Yeah, of course, yeah,” Spence said, and that was definitely Andy’s cue to go. He’d tarried too long as it was for reasons still unknown to him. He couldn’t even understand what they’re saying. He was practically useless now.  He grabbed his back pack off the ground and started sliding through the crowd of people gathered at the back of the ambulance, when a yank on his hood snapped him back. His hand tightened on the blade still in his pocket as he spun around until he was face-to-face, well not quite, with Patrick.

“I know you didn’t have to, and that it’s not really your thing,” Patrick said, “but thank you.”

Andy shrugged his shoulder. He didn’t know what Brendon signed to them about what happened, but he hoped it was nothing like heroic or some bullshit like that. Andy learned that move with the knife from a gang member bluffing his way out of a beat down from four rival gang members, not some comic book.

At least Patrick didn’t try to hug him.

He was not so lucky at the next Disability Advocacy meeting. Andy was not even sure why he even showed up. He definitely intended to skip, he knows he did. But two minutes to seven, he was standing outside the classroom to the meeting, and at that point he may as well go in since he was already there.

Most of the members were already assembled. Halsey was lying on the floor spread eagle because ‘she had to deal with the idiots assigned to her group project too long, and couldn’t handle it anymore.’ Dan was trying to console her.

Gabe and William were dancing in the center of the room for Tyler and Josh, showing off the ‘sweet moves’ according to Gabe that William learned to do with his prosthetic. Tyler noticed him walk in and gave him a nod of approval, before Josh pulled him over to Gabe and William to learn their ‘sweet, sweet moves.’

Pete and Jon were playing the ‘keep away’ game with Ryan, tossing one of Ryan’s hideous scarves over his head back and forth to one another. Andy thought that was pretty mean, until Ryan whacked both of them in the crotch with his cane and started laughing uproariously when they both hit the ground with a thud.

He spotted Brendon near the front of the room with Spencer and Dallon. The bruises on Brendon’s face had darkened over the last couple of days into a horrible shade of black and blue, which made even his tan skin look pale.  Brendon kept looking behind him, eyes constantly scanning the room, until Spencer placed his hands on both of Brendon’s shoulders, guarding Brendon’s back.  Despite that, and the shiner partially hidden under the thick frame of his glasses, the dressing tapped over his eye, and the busted lip, he had a huge, dorky smile on his face and was laughing at something Dallon was signing. Andy reluctantly admitted that maybe, _maybe,_ he did the right thing by coming to his defense.

He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop on that one.

It caught him offguard when Patrick tapped him on the shoulder.  “He’ll be okay,” Patrick said. Andy had the distinct feeling he’d just been initiated into their cult. He denied the oh so tiny, minuscule really, spark of happiness.

“I can’t believe those pricks broke his hearing aids,” Andy said, his way of acknowledging Patrick’s acceptance of him.

“Yeah, well, my mother is a damn good lawyer who knows the ADA here and some other very, very powerful lawyers in the area,” Patrick said. “And she loves Brendon like a son, and she's not above blackmail to get what she wants. At the very least, she’ll make sure they pay for it. She’ll also make sure that no one finds out about the knife you had on campus.”

He was starting to see how Tyler may have been right. It was … nice having friends who had his back. “Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Patrick said, before heading over towards Brendon, who lit up like a fucking Christmas tree after whatever Patrick signed to him. 

Someone abused Brendon at his most vulnerable,  he realized, and – Andy could read between the lines given to him – stole his hearing. Ryan dealt with being blind day in and day out, and there was nothing that could make that better, not even pot. Patrick didn’t just magically lose the use of his arm, and if it wasn’t the result of a traumatic accident, which he seriously doubted, that was still a lot for one person to deal with. And at 14, William was fighting every single day for his life. He lost his leg to that fight.

Andy wasn’t the only one in this world, not even in this room, who suffered through a shitty childhood. And yet, he was the only one that was bitter about it.

Maybe it was time that changed, too.

He nearly jumped out his skin when Gabe and William shrieked his name in unison. Both of the annoying soulmate pair wrapped their arms around him and squeezed, crushing Andy between their chests. It was totally not fair they were both as tall as he was. This was punishment, he decided, for past crimes.

“You saved our little Brenny,” Gabe said.

“Don’t call me that, _Gabriel_!” Brendon yelled from the other side of the room.

“Damn his lip reading is good,” Gabe said. “Anyways, where was I. Oh yeah ...”

“Our hero,” both Gabe and William said at the same time.

“Oh no,” Andy said, extricating himself from their excessively long limbs. “I am nobody’s hero.”

“Whatever you say, ADHD man,” Gabe said striking a ridiculous mockery of a Superman pose. William punched his soulmate in the shoulder. “Ow. Too insensitive? Shit, sorry,” Gabe said, looking, for the first time since Andy had known him, contrite.

“It’s fine,” Andy said, waving him off, and taking a seat as Patrick called the group’s attention. Two months ago he would have punched Gabe in the face and stormed out of the room for that comment. Andy sort of missed that person, and was sort of glad he was mostly gone.

*

It was late when he finally got back to his dorm room. He stayed for the meeting, and then at Tyler’s instance, joined them for a late night snack at their favorite café on campus. Ashley was already in bed, facing the wall, room completely dark when he slipped into the room.

Andy may not have had the same connection with his soulmate that Gabe had with William, and Brendon with Spencer, it was rare for soulmates to have that kind of connection, but he didn’t need to to know Ashley was wide awake.

He slipped in his faded Korn t-shirt, the very same shirt Ashley bought him at their first concert together, and slide into his tiny twin bed that barely accommodated his height.  

In the silence that stretched between them, he said, “I’m sorry.”

And in the space the didn't seem so large all of a sudden, Ashley said, "I know." 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I rushed the ending just a smidge, but it's finally done! We finally made it to the end. Thanks for sticking with me, and thanks to everyone who read, kudo'ed, and/or reviewed.

Andy had dropped more hints than bombs dropped on England during WWII that he was perhaps ready to maybe think about taking his relationship with Ashley a step further. Andy didn’t think Ashley got it, but he also didn’t think he was doing a very good job of explaining it either. He just didn’t know where to start, and he didn’t want things to move too quickly.

But if he was honest with himself, what he was really afraid of was change. If he pursued something more with Ashley, what happened to their friendship? What happened to them? And what if it didn’t work out? Though it was rare, history had proven that it was possible for two people destined to be soulmates to not work out. And he couldn't lose his best friend, he just couldn't. Though admittedly, in many of those cases it turned out they weren’t soulmates after all, but still …

Ugh, God. He was so pathetic.

 _Ashley, I want to  hold your hand._ Seven words, just seven simple words. And he couldn’t say them, he couldn’t fucking say them! Why were relationships so hard, damnit, especially with the person he was _meant_ to be with?

“Ashley, I want to try holding your fucking hand,” he practiced out loud to his reflection in the full length mirror glued to the inside of his closet. He even held out his sweaty hand to his reflection and snatched it back. “Jesus fucking Christ you fucking pansy,” he murmured, and jumped out of his skin when the door burst open. From some reason, he thought it a good idea to jump into his bed, cover his naked chest with his sheet, and ‘act normal,’ whatever that may be in his case. In this particular moment, it was grabbing the first book he could find off his desk and propping it open on his chest.

“Physics is killing me. High school did not prepare me for this,” Ashley said as he threw his backpack onto his desk, and collapsed onto his bed with a groan. “What the fuck were you doing?” Ashley asked, realizing at the same moment as Andy that the book in his hands was upside down. _Well, shit._

“Nothing, nothing,” Andy said, snapping the book shut, and rubbing his blushing cheeks on his shoulders.

“Uh-huh,” Ashley said, but let it go, as he curled up into a ball and turned to face Andy.

Andy took a deep breath to settle his nerves, and said, “Ashley, can I …” at the exact moment Ashley said, “Andy, can I ask you …”

“You go first,” Andy said, resisting the urge to hide his blushing cheeks behind his upside down book.

“How do you study?”

“What?”

“How do you study?”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” Andy said, guarded, not particularly liking where this conversation started.

However, Ashley remained oblivious to his growing distress. He just didn’t get it, he _never_ got it that school and studying were a touchy subject for Andy, and he kept pushing so many times in the past that it had led to what Andy estimated was probably more than half of the fights they’d had in the last 15 years. “It’s just, I’ve never had to study before, you know?”

“I know,” Andy interrupted darkly. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

“No, I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, you do study a lot,” Ashley said, sitting up to face him full on.

 It made Andy feel self-conscious, so he slipped on one of the shirts piled on his bed. “I assume you’re building up to some sort of point here,” Andy said.

 “No, I’m not,” he said. “I just … How do you do it?”

“Do what?” he asked, his voice taking on that dark, husky tone that made Ashley shiver.

“Study, how do you study?”

Andy stared at him blankly for a moment. He was fully aware his blank face looked a lot like his resting bitch face. It made Ashley squirm, his cheeks as red as Andy’s were a moment ago.

“I read,” Andy finally said, springing off his bed. He gathered up his homework scattered across his desk and shoved it into his backpack. “Just not as fast as you, apparently. In fact, since I need to study so much, I think I’m going to go do that right now.”

He let the door slam shut behind him.

It wasn’t until he made it down all 12 floors of his dorm and stormed out the front door that he realized maybe he had overreacted just a little bit. Ashley just made him so mad sometimes. Everything just came so easy to him, and he never understood how hard it was for Andy. How much effort he had to put into studying, how much of his life he had to devote to it. How much he’d sacrificed to make it this far.

He would never understand, he just couldn’t.

He found himself at Spencer and Ryan’s dorm room. Per the school’s policy, the two were not allowed to dorm with their soulmates unless married, but the two opted to live on campus because it was both easier for Ryan to deal with and the campus gave them a room on the ground floor in the dorm on campus that everyone wanted to be in. Their room practically had a swinging door and at any given moment you could find any number of the Disability Advocacy Club members hanging out there regardless of whether or not Ryan or Spencer were there.

Andy had spent a lot of time here since the night he saved Brendon and officially accepted his long-standing welcome into the group. He told himself it was a convenient place to hang out in between his classes since it was so close to all of them, and he often let the others drag him there. But secretly he was relishing in getting to be a part of what he was coming to realize was a pretty awesome group of friends. He’d never had this before.

This, however, was the first time he had ever come to their room on his own. He didn’t know if the welcome extended to just him when there was no one else dragging him there, even though Spencer had told him he was always welcome. He thought that just had something to do with him coming to the defense of Spencer’s soulmate and all, and the gratefulness had probably worn off by now. So it was conceivable to think the welcome had, too.

Andy knew this kind of thinking was why he had only one friend before now.

He probably would have chickened out, turned around, and pretended he hadn’t stood outside Ryan and Spencer’s dorm for five minutes, too chicken shit to knock on the door, if Jon and Ryan hadn’t chosen that moment to walk out, Ryan’s cane poking him in the shin as he literally stumbled upon Andy.

“Hey Andy,” Jon pleasantly said. “We were just leaving, but Spencer and Brendon are here. Come on in,” he said ushering Andy inside. Andy had no choice, really, but to head in.

Brendon greeted him with that huge smile Andy kind of hated, the kind of smile that said Brendon was actually glad to see him there. He knew it was paranoia, and he was trying to work on it, but people being friendly to him made Andy very suspicious.  “Andy,” Brendon csaid from his spot on the floor where he was lounging on his stomach, a text book open in front of him. Spencer was lounging on his bed, an open econ book on his lap, but he looked more half asleep than awake. It was just the two of them, like Jon said, and Andy hoped he wasn’t interrupting anything like … personal, or sexual. “What brings you here?” 

“Uh, just homework,” Andy said, glad he at least remembered to take his backpack with him when he stormed out of the room and slammed the door on Ashely. His geography and writing textbooks and notebooks were the only thing in it, though. Not the homework he actually needed to work on, but he was not ready to go back yet. “If that’s okay?”

“Of course,” Brendon said, mostly ignoring him as he awkwardly settled on the floor, his back leaning up against Spencer’s dresser. He was thankful it was just Brendon and Spencer in the room. He liked hanging out with them better than the others, some of whom he didn’t know very well yet like Halsey, Dan, or Dallon, or some of whom liked to pry into his personal life too much, like Gabe  and William. Plus Brendon, and by extension Spencer, were more conscious of Andy’s personal space issues and didn’t crowd into it or invade his so-called purple circle. It allowed him to relax more readily around the two of them compared to the others.

Spencer fell asleep almost instantly, but Brendon hummed out of tune under his breath as he highlighted his textbook in bright pink, looking like a four year old during arts and crafts time without a care in the world. Andy did not understand how, _how_ Brendon could be so damn happy all the time after everything he’d been through. For fuck’s sake, Andy could still see the evidence on Brendon’s face in the form of a cut fading into a thin scar above his eyebrow, and in the shadow of a bruise around his eye and on his jaw, the result of blood pooling under his skin, that Andy knew form experience took months to go away.  Life shit on them, okay? Life shit on Andy pretty hard. Where other people just glided by in life, he had to struggle and fight and claw his way from the bottom just to get where he was, and it wasn’t fucking fair, and he was never going to be happy about it. It made no sense that someone in a similar situation to him could be.

“Uh, you got new hearing aids?” Andy asked, cursing himself for stating the obvious. He wasn’t very good at conversation, though, an he didn’t want to bother Brendon if he was studying. But Brendon _had_ been staring off into space for the last five minutes, so he figured it would be okay to interrupt.

“What?” Brendon startled, his eyes focusing on Andy. “Oh yeah. Brand new, and the most expensive pair I could find, paid for entirely by the guys who broke my last pair. Once the lawyer Patrick’s mom hired for me started throwing words around like hate crime, they were quick to settle out of court. And let’s just say I don’t have to work at that smoothie place anymore. The pictures you took really helped to solidify my case, too, so thanks again for saving my ass.”

“It was nothing,” he mumbled, hopefully too low for Brendon to hear him even with his brand new hearing aids, and shrugged his shoulder.

“Plus, I got an extension on all my assignments for the rest of the semester. The school actually gave me two options, they would either hire someone to interpret all my classes for me, or I could tape record them, listen to them later, and get an extension on all my assignments. Naturally, I chose the latter. Spencer doesn’t agree. He thinks I’ll procrastinate even more than I already do and fall too far behind, but _phft_ what does he know?” he joked, turning around to see Spencer’s reaction, only to shake his head fondly when he found his soulmate fast asleep. “He’s exhausted," Brendon admitted quietly. "He’s been so worried about me, he’s hardly slept. But he forgets, sometimes, that I’ve been dealing with this pretty much my whole life. I can handle it,” Brendon said with a shrug of his shoulder, seemingly moving past the incident just like that. _How,_ Andy’s brain screamed, _how does he do it?_

“Do you ever get mad at Spencer for not understanding your situation, you know, with the deafness?” Andy asked, shooting his gaze towards Spencer to make sure he was really asleep.

Brendon tilted his head like a friggin German Shepherd puppy in confusion. “No,” he said. “Spencer’s a pretty understanding guy.”

“I guess that wasn’t the best way to say it. I’m just … I got in a fight with my friend, Ashley, and I’m  frustrated, I guess. I mean, everything comes so easily to him and he just doesn’t understand what I have to go through just to keep up with him. Sometimes it feels like he’s a pretty insensitive jerk about it. Do you ever feel like that?”

“Well, not really,” Brendon said, and if he wasn’t so sincere about it, Andy would be annoyed. “I mean, no one really understands what someone else is going through, not even soulmates.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Andy reluctantly agreed. “But  don’t you ever get jealous? I mean, we have to struggle for everything that normal people already have.”

“Not really,” Brendon said with a shrug, while highlighting his textbook with a flourish of pink. Andy briefly wondered if he had highlighters in any other color, or if he just liked pink that much.

“How?” Andy pressed, because he did not understand how Brendon could be so … seemingly nonchalant about his disability, especially since Andy was about 90% sure he wasn’t born that way. He could once hear. Was he not bitter about that being taken away?

“Listen,” Brendon said, capping his pink highlighter. “I like to think of life as a race track filled with obstacles. Everyone starts the race at the same exact place, and everyone has similar obstacles in similar places. What you call ‘normal people,’ yeah they may get through the first obstacle faster than some of us and they may reach the next obstacle long before we do, and breeze past that one, too. Meanwhile, we keep a steady pace, reaching our own obstacles in our own time, and working hard to get past them.

“However, the people who seemingly breeze through their obstacles, one day they are going to come across a hurdle they can’t immediately jump over, and they won’t know what to do. Instead, they are going to sit there and struggle on how to overcome this obstacle. Without any help, they’ll probably sit there for a very long time before they acquire the necessary skills or confidence or whatever it is they need to get over that obstacle. Some of them may even give up because they just can’t figure out how to because they’ve never had to struggle before. Even if they do get over it, the next obstacle is just as hard, or harder to get by, and they have to go through the process all over again.

 “Meanwhile, as that is happening,  though it's not necessarily the same for everyone, some of us may be slower on our track, but we keep chugging along on our own course, and we eventually catch up to the other people on the race track. You know why? Because when we get to these same obstacles, it’s easier for us. We already struggled our entire life, through those first obstacles, but that gave us the coping mechanisms, and strategies we need to get over that next obstacle, no matter how hard it is. So when we get to those same difficult obstacles that are tripping up other people who didn’t have to struggle before, we already know exactly what to do, and we keep going at the same pace we’ve always gone. Do you get what I’m trying to say?”

“I think so,” Andy said.

"You know the greatest strategy I've learned for getting over the hardest hurdles in my life?"

"What?" 

"It's the people in my life. Sometimes they help me over that hurdle, sometimes I help them, sometimes we do it together. People are the most important parts of our lives, and if we let them, they can help us through anything," Brendon said, his eyes seeking out Spencer. “Everyone fails at something, but it doesn’t matter how many times you fail, or how long it takes you to do something, or how far you get, or whether or not someone gets there before you. It just matters how you get up and try again, and the people who are there to help you.”

**

Andy felt like a dick.  

He’d been so wrapped up in his own problems his whole life that sometimes he forgot every one had problems, even Ashley. And while he liked to think he was always there for Ashley when he needed him, he thought maybe over the years he may have missed a few or failed to understand, just like he always complained Ashley failed to understand him.

It was just another thing to add to his list on how to be a better person, but no one was perfect right? And if he knew he needed to change, then he could.

Andy threw open the door with dramatic flair, threw his backpack in the general direction of his side of the room, and launched himself onto Ashley’s bed. He scooted back until his back was flush against the wall. He stared at his soulmate imploringly, until Ashley rolled his eyes, placed the magazine he was reading down, and rearranged himself so he was sitting next to Andy.

“I’m sorry,” Ashley said. “I wasn’t trying to insult you, I just … I’m failing physics. I’ve never … I don’t know how to study, okay? I’ve never had to before, and clearly what I’m doing is not working. That’s why I … I was just hoping you could teach me how so I don’t fail my physics class.”

“I seriously doubt you’re failing as bad as you think you are,” Andy said, suddenly realizing how true Brendon’s life philosophy was in this exact moment. “But I shouldn’t have overreacted like that. I’m sorry. I’d be happy to teach you how I study, but what works for me won't necessarily work for you. It’s really trial by error.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Ashley said, resting his head against the wall behind him. “Studying sucks.”

“It sure does,” Andy agreed, watching his soulmate closely, noticing the strong curve of his jaw, the smudge of eyeliner under his eyes, the way his adams apple jerked when he swallowed.

“Is there something on my face?” Ashley joked.

“No, it’s just …” he said. It was now or never. If he didn’t do this now, he could potentially put it off forever, and he didn’t want to be alone that long. If there was anything, anything at all the people of the Disability Advocacy Club had thought him it was even if he had been hurt in the past, even if the people in his early life consistently let him down, there were still good people out there he could trust. Isolating his heart to protect himself would only hurt him more in the end. “If I wasn’t your soulmate,” Andy said, “would you have stuck around me all these years?”

“No, you’re totally an asshole,” Ashley said, and it was mean to be joking, but Andy felt his expression fall, as he turned to stare at his lap instead and the hands he couldn’t stop rubbing anxiously together. “Hey, I was just kidding,” Ashley was quick to amend.   

“If … if I wasn’t your soulmate, what about me would make you want to be my friend?” Andy asked.

Ashley nudged his shoulder with his, forcing Andy to look up. “You’re pretty much the greatest person I know.”

“That’s nice,” Andy sarcastically said, “but bullshit. I’m kind of a jerk.”

“Hey, no, listen,” Ashley said, resting his hand so close to Andy’s thigh they were almost touching. He couldn’t not stare at that hand, his mind itching to reach out and touch it.  “You’ve had a pretty tough lot in life, and yeah, you can be a jerk about it, but you’ve never let it get you down. You’ve never let it stop you from going after what you want. Not your learning disability, your mother’s death, your brother’s arrest, or the idiots at school. You could have easily given up, but you didn’t. And yeah, you have your moments, everybody does. And yeah, you have this really gruff exterior that kind of comes off as an asshole sometimes, but I know that hard shell is just covering a mountain of goo that despite not wanting to, always does the right thing, and always sticks up for what is right, even if you put yourself at risk in the process.”

Andy felt his cheeks burn hot, as he inched his hand closer to Ashley’s. “Goo, huh?”

“White, fluffy, marshmallow goo. Other people may not see it, but you can’t hide it from me,” Ashley said, eyes locked on Andy’s and oblivious to Andy’s hand incrementally creeping towards his. “Even when you’re being a dick.”

“Still, I’m sorry for being a dick,” he said, locking his own eyes on Ashley’s. "I’ve taken you for granted, and you’re pretty much the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t tell you enough that I do love you.”

“I’ve always understood you weren’t  ready, and I’ve accepted that you might never be, but I’m still with you no matter what.”

His pinky brushed against Ashley’s, sending his heart racing, a wild rhythm erratically beating against his chest.

“You’re wrong about one thing. My learning disability, my past, my trust issues, they did keep me from one thing,” Andy said.

“What’s that?”

“You,” Andy said, sneaking his hand under Ashley’s and lacing their fingers together.

Ashley gasped at the contact, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips that he tried to suppress. “Yeah?”

Andy leaned forward and forgot every single excuse for why he hadn’t done this before. He forgot all the reasons this was a bad idea, and he forgot all the scenarios that carefully played out in his head of what would happen if he lost Ashley. He let go of every single excuse he told himself for why now wasn’t the right time. Instead, Andy leaned forward and kissed Ashley.

His lips were softer than he would have expected, like the brush of silk caressing his skin. He pulled away quickly, but it was enough, enough for now, enough to unblock the relationship he had been putting off for far too long, and finally let it flow.

“You’re worth the wait,” Ashley said, resting their foreheads together, his hand cupping Andy’s cheek.

It was too good of an opportunity, not to respond in his best impersonation of Han Solo, “I know.” Even if their laughter ruined the moment, there would be many more to come.

*

“I want you to meet my new friends,” Andy said, as he plopped down on Ashley’s bed, stretched out next to him, and took Ashley’s hand. Touch was still kind of an iffy thing for him, but he was learning to at least let Ashley close. _I can trust Ashley,_ he reminded himself every day, and it was slowly starting to sink in like a rock in wet sand. _I can trust Ashley._

“Friends? I thought they were ‘forced acquaintances,’” Ashley said, raising one eyebrow at him in a look that Andy wanted to wipe from his face by smacking him in the back of the head. Had they been just friends, he would have smacked Ashley in an instant, and had in the past before, but it didn’t feel like that was something appropriate to do to his soulmate, for some reason, and oh how the word soulmate sent a thrill through him, one he did not even attempt to ignore anymore.

“I may have been … mistaken,” Andy said. Ashley’s face clearly said ‘you think.’ Andy scrunched up his face, and resisted the urge, yet again, to slap his soulmate. “I hear I can be stubborn sometimes,” he said with a shrug. “So what do you say? There’s a club meeting tonight at 6. Everyone will be there, and there will be free pizza, too.”

“You don’t have to sell it to me,” Ashley said, pressing a quick kiss to his lips to stop the mess of words that was spewing from him. “It’s about time you offered to introduce me to your friends, but I hear I have the patience of a Saint,” he said. Andy rolled his eyes at him.

“Hey Andy,” several of the DAC members greeted him at once, as he walked in with Ashley close behind, reminiscent of the first time  Gabe and William dragged him here. On that day, he never thought he’d willing be attending these meetings, and that he would come to call this eclectic group of people his friends.

“Hey guys. This is my soulmate, Ashley. He wants to join.”

Gabe and William both perked up, instantly straightening in their seats. “Soulmate,” Gabe said to William who shrugged in response, before they both turned to him with a smile like the cat who caught the canary. They rose in unison and sauntered over to him.

“Oh, no,” Andy said, knowing what they were going to ask. He knew it would just be a joke at this point, but still. “No way.”

“Oh come on,” Gabe whined. “We can provide references. Spencer and Brendon are very trustworthy, and they’re quite fond of you, so they wouldn’t lie.”

“No,” he said, pushing Ashley away from them .

“So, these are your friends,” Ashley said, as they both watched the chaos unfold in the room after Andy introduced them all individually.

Pete was stealing kisses from Patrick every time someone said the word ‘it.’ It was a game, explained Josh, that everyone knew about and was in on except for poor Patrick. Dallon was currently talking to Patrick, and, it seemed, trying to fill as many of his sentences with the word ‘it’ as possible, while maintaining a surprisingly good poker face. Patrick huffed and told Pete to ‘knock it off,’ which earned him another kiss, but the fond smiles Patrick kept shooting at his soulmate, and the way he let Pete dip him and kiss him silly after Dallon used the word ‘it’ three times in one sentence, said Patrick really didn’t mind at all.

“Andy shot us down,” he heard Gabe say, and he could hear the pout in his voice. “You two want another night with the Super-Amazing-Guaranteed-To-Blow-Your-Mind-Super-Awesome-Love Gods?”

“You said super twice,” Brendon said, as Spencer wrapped an arm around his waist from behind, and pressed a kiss into his soulmate’s jaw.

“It was a one night only deal,” Spencer said, and he could Gabe gearing up to either whine or argue his case, “but we might be able to be convinced for the right price.”

“And what would that be,” Gabe purred. Brendon and Spencer shared a smirk, and Gabe looked almost ... worried.

“You’re totally getting schooled by Halsey,” Josh said to a red faced Tyler. “She’s never even played basketball.”

“How is this even possible?” Tyler groaned, as Halsey sunk another paper ball into the garbage can, and burst out laughing at the sour look on Tyler’s. There were already a few scattered paper balls around the waste bin, and a pile next to each of them.  

“I’ll have you know I was voted MVP my senior year of high school,” Tyler said.

“Must not have been a very good basketball team,” Halsey joked, elbowing Tyler gently in the ribs.

Tyler sunk two shots in a row, and then burst from his seat, shouting ‘ha’ at Halsey.

“Oh, it’s on,” Halsey said. “You’re going down, Mr. MVP.”

“Not likely,” Tyler said, though they were both laughing. 

“You got this, babe,” Josh said, rubbing Tyler’s shoulders like he was a coach in the boxing ring.

“Hey,” Halsey protested. “What about me?”

“Sorry. Soulmate,” Josh said, gesturing to Tyler.

“Dan get over here. I need a cheering squad,” Halsey said. Dan obediently jogged over. She made three shots in a row, before jumping to her feet, and running a victory lap around Tyler and Josh as Dan chanted, “Halsey, Halsey, Halsey.”

Jon and Ryan were both lying on the floor, though Andy didn't think that was very sanitary. 

"Close your eyes," Jon said to his soulmate. 

"I'm already blind," Ryan responded. "What does it matter?"

"Just close your eyes," Jon said. "Can you see it yet?"

"Explain it to me one more time," Ryan said, though there was something fond in his voice. 

“Yeah, these are my friends,” Andy said, turning back to Ashley.

“I like ‘em.”

He laced his fingers through Ashley’s, and said, “Yeah. Me, too.”


End file.
